Dhaka: Ganatantrik Bam Morcha, a combine of left-leaning parties, will hold a solidarity rally in the city on November 5 for the cause of preserving the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Alliance convener Saiful Haque announced the programme from a protest rally arranged in front of the National Press Club on Wednesday.

The solidarity rally will be held as part of the Road March to Save Sundarbans arranged by the Ganatantrik Bam Morcha.

Stating that the planned Rampal Power Plant will destroy the Sundarbans, Haque said the government is going ahead with building the power plant partnering the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited of India, defying all forms of protest and denying a proper debate over the issue.

He said it takes thousands and thousands of years for a natural forest to come about, but a few years are enough to destroy it.

‘We need electricity, but we don’t want it in exchange for the Sundarbans.’

 Haque pointed out that there are many alternatives to choose from in building power plants, but no alternative to the Sundarbans.

Bangladesher Samajtantrik Dal-Marxist convener Shuvrangshu Chakrabarty also spoke at the programme.