Mulkuć Bibi, standing beneath the Kazipara Metro Station, is seventy years old. Her husband has been gone for twenty-seven years. Her daughter and son-in-law are both garment workers. After eating sehri, she leaves at dawn, stands in line, rests on the metro stairs, and by noon receives a packet worth 550 taka. That is the biggest achievement of her day. Looking at this picture, one can understand many things. But the question no one is asking loudly is: how did we get here? In 2008, the country’s poverty rate was close to thirty-five percent. Over the following decade and a half, it

fell to about 18.7 percent. That number is not just a statistic; it tells the story of improved living standards for millions. The story may not have been perfect, there was room for criticism, but the direction was forward. Then came the change of 2024. New leadership arrived, new promises were made. But a 2025 report by the World Bank says the poverty rate could rise to 22.9 percent. The Power and Participation Research Centre estimates it may be even higher, around 28 percent. The share of people in extreme poverty has jumped from 5.6 percent to 9.35 percent. How did such

a decline happen in just a few months? The economy has its own momentum, true. But leadership decisions matter too. During the period when the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus was in power, food inflation reached 8.29 percent in January. Prices of soybean oil, lentils, and sugar rose to levels where saving 400 taka meant the difference between survival and hardship for a rickshaw driver’s family. In this situation, the government deployed trucks of the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), which is a positive step. But in Dhaka, with fifty distribution points serving about four hundred families each, how much of

the actual demand is being met? Md. Shakil has to keep his coconut stall closed after standing in line for four hours. Minuara Begum stands for hours in the sun with her one-year-old child in her arms. Nasir Khan waits in a rickshaw with a broken leg for his wife to return. Is this a real solution, or just an arrangement to mask the problem? It is now February 2026. The BNP has been in power since the 17th. The fragility of the economic situation left behind by the Yunus government is evident from the length of TCB lines. But the BNP’s

own history is not spotless either. The party has repeatedly been embroiled in corruption controversies, and there is a record of how much ordinary people’s lives improved during its previous rule. What will it do now? Professor Selim Raihan of SANEM is right in saying that continuous inflation has put people under extreme pressure. TCB operations are not sufficient. Separate arrangements are needed for workers in industrial zones, and distribution systems should be expanded into low-income areas. But who is listening to this advice? The commerce minister, from whom comments were sought, did not respond. The TCB chairman is silent as well. That

silence, in fact, speaks the loudest. Before going to bed at night, Mulkuć Bibi packs her bag for the next dawn’s queue. That scene is the reality of Bangladesh in February 2026 — a reality no government can proudly display, yet one for which none can evade responsibility.