Now people unable to exercise voting right: Menon  

Workers Party President Rashed Khan Menon, MP on Saturday claimed that people cannot exercise their franchise in elections freely.

"Current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and I myself waged movements for fair election, but today common people can't express their opinions in elections. Even people are losing their right to upazila and union elections," he said. 

The Workers Party chief was addressing the council of its district unit at Ashwini Kumar Ghosh Smriti Community Hall in Barishal.

Menon was elected MP in the 11th parliamentary election from the Awami League-led Grand Alliance.

He served as Social Welfare and Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister during the two previous tenures of the Awami League government unlike this time. 

Menon said development does not mean curbing people's freedom of speech. The development of a country where people can't exercise their voting right gets stalled."

He also claimed that the looting and corruption have taken an epidemic turn with the development. "The government is unleashing development on one hand, people surrounding it are looting thousands of crores of taka on the other hand. As a result, people are not getting the benefit of the development," he said.

The Workers Party president demanded that all of those involved in casino business be brought under the law. "They siphoned off crores of taka and built second homes abroad."

Workers Party leaders Sheikh Md Tipu Sultan, Shanti Das, Bishwajit Baroi, Shahjahan Talukdar and Faizul Haque Bari also spoke at the programme.

Later, they brought out a red-flag procession in the area.