BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday alleged that the government has kept the population size low in the Population and Housing Census 2022 only to show high per capita income.
“The country’s population is presented lower [than the actual figure] to show high per capita income. We usually calculate 180 million people in our country. But it’ll be helpful to show much more per capita income if the population is counted as 160 million,” he said.
The BNP secretary general made the remarks at a press conference at the party chairperson's Gulshan office reacting to the preliminary data of the census.
He also said the planning minister himself admitted that the census calculation was not correct. “The data was not collected properly by going from house to house."
Earlier, on Wednesday, the provisional data of the census was revealed by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
According to the preliminary report of the census, the county’s total population is 165,158,616 with a 1.22% growth rate in place of the previous 1.37%.
Fakhrul said a national population census should be conducted properly by collecting authentic information from every house.
“But the government is misleading and deceiving people with incorrect information. The entire government is based on deception. It is a totally fake government,” he observed.
Replying to a question, the BNP leader said the country has long been facing a political crisis as the government has destroyed democracy and the electoral system.
“An election is the main road or gateway to democracy. People of the whole country are now saying one thing loudly that there can be no fair election in this country if the Awami League government remains in power."
Even, Fakhrul said, the Election Commission is saying that the election will not be acceptable without the participation of the major parties. “In such a situation, the government has started taking a strategy to bypass the people’s demand and divert the issue to a different direction.”
About Mohiuddin Roni’s recent movement against various irregularities in Bangladesh Railway, he said it was a part of Awami League’s strategy to confuse the people.
“When Roni started the agitation, I said it would be seen very soon that this is Awami League's strategy and finally it proved to be true. After ending his agitation, Rony entered the Awami League office. This is their strategy of diversion.”