Gas price hike: Leftists to besiege ministry, BNP to demonstrate

Left-leaning political parties will besiege the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources on March 15 while BNP will observe a countrywide sit-in programme on Thursday protesting the government recent decision on gas price hike.

“If the government don’t revoke recent gas price hike, we will besiege the ministry on March 15,” said the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) leader Ruhin Hossain Prince on Tuesday.

The announcement came from the CPB-BSD nexus and Gonotantrik Bam Morcha – two alliances of the left-leaning parties – after carrying out a half day hartal.

The leftists will also carry out a campaign against the price hike from March 1 to March 14.

On the other hand, BNP which supported the hartal announced a sit-in programme.

“The sit-in programme will be observed from 10:00am to 12:00pm,” BNP senior joint secretary general Rizvi Ahmed said at a press briefing at the party’s Nayapaltan central office in Dhaka,

The government announced its decision to increase the gas price in two phases. The tariff for single burner will be Tk 750 while double burner will be sold at Tk 800 in first phase from March 1.

The second phase will be implemented from June 1. From then, the customer will have to pay Tk 900 for single burner and Tk 950 for double.