Editorial
Rally or people's woes
Keep such programmes to specific places only
People are deeply respectful of important national days and would want to observe those with due fervour, respect and solemnity. And indeed 7th March is one such day in our history. However, what we saw being done in the name of rally on the historic day was totally bereft of any consideration for public convenience. It is the right of every political party to hold political programmes but should the common person be made to suffer for that?
The traffic snarl started from early in the morning with long tailbacks due to the major roads being blocked to traffic movements, which lasted for the greater part of the day. The front page picture in the 8th March issue of this newspaper depicts the situation most vividly. The Shahabag intersection that is one of the very few east-west traffic links of the city was blocked off due to the rally. It looked as if the city heart was "occupied" depriving the citizenry of its use, putting school going children, office goers and most of all, patients going to hospitals, under tremendous physical agony. Most had to endure the distress for anywhere between two and six hours. How can the authorities inflict such sufferings on the people? Is it because everything of the ruling party goes? One wonders whether any other political party would have been allowed to virtually lay siege to a part of the capital. In celebrating a national day the ruling party has only managed to incur people's displeasure.
And that begs the question. Should the administration not think of alternative locations to hold such rallies rather than on the main thoroughfare, and even better if those were confined to a particular ground? Given that there are more imminent political programmes, our fears of further public misery are compounded by the prospect of impending chaos on the streets that these rallies will create. And in this regard we had expressed our worry about the government not allowing BNP to use the Paltan Maidan.
It is not just the question of personal inconvenience only. Has anyone worked out the sums involving loss of productivity in man hours and the wastage of fuel given that what takes half an hour to cover took 4 hours in some cases. It is also a question of what image of Dhaka we are projecting to the outside world. It is already the second worst city in the world and images such as we saw yesterday will only keep prospective investors out. We should not forget that visibility of the capital is one of the biggest inputs for attracting foreign investment. What we saw yesterday will only detract, not attract, investors.
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