Today, the Tarique Rahman government will present its first budget plan. Meanwhile, the first budget session of the newly formed parliament began on June 7. One can say that, after about four months, parliament is finally entering discussions on the country’s political economy. This was needed since right after the mass uprising in 2024. Nearly two years later, Bangladesh is entering that important chapter.
The foundation of any society and state is its economy. Since the mass uprising, there has been much discussion about various reforms. However, the two reports on economic reform have largely been ignored. Even the July charter contains no significant recommendations on this issue. This is surprising because the central demand of the mass uprising was to reduce inequality. Yet, the government that followed largely avoided the subject.
Of the five main chapters in the BNP’s 39-page election manifesto, two focused on economic reconstruction. They spoke of rebuilding and restoring a “fragile economy.” At the same time, “social development free from inequality” (p. 11) was promised. While making this promise, the party referred to the country’s 28 percent poor population and stated that “poverty is not a personal failure; it is a structural crisis.” Naturally, one would expect to see efforts to address this structural crisis now.
The manifesto also stated that wages would be adjusted in line with inflation, referred to as “price-index-based wages.” Under the latest approved Bangladesh Labour (Amendment) Act, 2026, wages in 13 sectors are due for revision this year. It is therefore reasonable to expect that the new wage structures in these sectors will be based on price indexing.
Not only the BNP, but Jamaat-e-Islami also devoted several chapters of its 90-page election manifesto to economic development. It presented a vision of raising per capita income to $10,000 by 2040. It also stated that, to address what it described as one of Bangladesh’s main problems—unemployment—it would create employment opportunities for seven crore working-age young people.
Both the governing party and the main opposition party placed the fundamental issues of the economy at the centre of their goals and aspirations. They made promises accordingly and presented visions for the future. These promises and visions were offered only four months ago. One hopes that the policymakers from these parties still remember them. Bangladesh will now want to see the implementation of those election commitments. Since both parties claim to be champions of the 2024 mass uprising, reducing inequality through economic development is their shared responsibility.
The reality of inequality in Bangladesh is genuinely ugly, despite constant efforts to conceal or downplay it. Many may recall that the Global Inequality Report 2026 by the Paris School of Economics found that the wealthiest 10 percent of Bangladeshis own 58 percent of the country’s total wealth. Within that group, the richest one percent alone hold a quarter of all national wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent of the population own only 4.7 percent of the national wealth. A similar pattern holds for income. Forty-one percent of national income goes to the top 10 percent of earners, while the bottom 50 percent receive only 19 percent.
During Sheikh Hasina’s megaproject economy, these inequalities in wealth and income did not decrease. Behind the megaprojects, “giga corruption” was consuming the benefits of economic growth. The response to that was the anti-discrimination mass uprising of 2024. The moment students came out with anti-discrimination banners, workers and shopkeepers in places such as Ashulia, Savar, Gazipur, and Jatrabari joined them in large numbers, shedding blood and giving their lives spontaneously. The families of these martyrs, their colleagues, and the disadvantaged people in our society will examine this budget very closely. They will want answers and follow related news carefully. Then, they will evaluate whether BNP has kept its promises or not.
People will also follow budget-related debates and observe whether the opposition can genuinely secure measures to reduce unemployment and inequality. They will want to see if the highly active and vocal customers of Islami Bank are equally committed to reducing the economic deprivation faced by the millions who voted for daripalla.
In many countries, national budgets showcase examples of economic creativity from policymakers and politicians. In Bangladesh, where the budget usually means higher prices, ordinary people often view the event with anxiety. Our governments have recently become artful in dealing with this. For example, the current government increased fuel prices twice even before the budget. Gas prices rose once; electricity prices were not spared either. As a result, production and transport costs are rising, leading to an increase in the cost of goods. Inflation currently stands at over nine percent. However, workers’ wages are not increasing accordingly. This means that their real wages are continuously declining.
Millions of people naturally view the budget through the lens of their own economic realities. Their main concern is whether budgetary measures will affect their real wages, improve their children’s access to education, widen their family’s access to healthcare, and address their housing and transport struggles.
The largest share of our population works in the informal sector. Additionally, formal and informal sector workers constitute the country’s largest social group. Yet, the Ministry of Labour and Employment receives one of the smallest budget allocations every year. In 2025-26, it received Tk 438 crore. In the previous fiscal year, it received Tk 346 crore. In 2023-24, the ministry was allocated Tk 347 crore. During the last 15 years, the ministry’s allocation has never exceeded 0.10 percent of the total national budget. Likewise, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare & Overseas Employment, also closely linked to labour economics, has consistently received less than 0.25 percent of the total allocation across all ministries and divisions.
These figures demonstrate the state’s lack of emphasis on improving the labour sector. In a country where the ministry responsible for the interests of over seven crore working people receives less than one percent of the total budget, how can politicians’ promises to the poor be seen as anything but rhetorical?
Farmers have faced similar neglect from policymakers. One major reason behind the structural deprivation of the agricultural sector is the disappearance of farmers’ organisations from national politics. Although farmers have been given special cards, it is still unclear what long-term solutions these cards will provide. Experience from one upazila in Bogura suggests that the money provided through these cards is quickly spent on purchasing small amounts of things from designated dealers.
Affidavit data show that 59 percent of elected MPs are businesspeople. In the first parliament after independence, this figure was 18 percent. In 1991, it was 38 percent. Evidently, our parliament is increasingly being dominated by the business community. The markets for agricultural inputs and crops have largely shifted to the private sector. Given the extent to which business groups in Bangladesh operate through syndicates, it is difficult to see how a ruling party dominated by business interests could ensure a fair market. Besides, 80 percent of current MPs are millionaires. Among the elected members of the governing party alone, 189 are millionaires. Some of them are even billionaires. It is difficult to predict how interested a parliament dominated by wealthy businesspeople will be in bringing about the structural reforms necessary to improve the lives of workers and farmers and to reshape production relations accordingly. According to basic economic logic, one would not expect such interest to be low. A parliament dominated by business interests is more likely to favour maintaining the existing “stability.”
“Bangladesh First” is an attractive slogan. But Bangladesh is a class-divided society. It consists of people who own thousands of crores of taka, as well as workers in the industrial sector earning only Tk 180 a day, if that. The interests of these groups are not the same. In many cases, their interests may even be opposed. Therefore, the budget will reveal who the government truly chooses to prioritise—the aspiration to reduce inequality or the old arrangement?
Altaf Parvez is a researcher and political analyst.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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