Do people really count?

In the valedictory speech of the budget session on July 3, 2014, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in response to BNP's threat to stage anti-government movement after Eid, warned that the government would not tolerate people's suffering in the name of movement. She further said that “No one will be allowed to play with people's fates.”
How happy we would be if we could accept her concern about the suffering of the people as meaningful; because we have not forgotten how we suffered during the Awami League's movement for a caretaker government. It was nightmarish.
And talking about fate, it is ironical that PM Sheikh Hasina herself is playing with it. With utter helplessness we watched the election of January 5 and forming of a government without people's mandate. People did not count. So, reference to people's sufferings by the prime minister is hard to digest.
Nur Jahan
Chittagong