But AL President Sheikh Hasina came to his rescue and said the issue could be discussed later, as some AL Central Working Committee (ALCWC) members sought clarification from their general secretary at an emergency meeting at the party headquarters on Bangabandhu Avenue.

Meeting sources quoted Jalil as telling frontline leaders Amir Hossain Amu, Tofail Ahmed and Suranjit Sengupta that there might be some mistakes in the antigovernment movement against the coalition's "failure to clean up corruption and crime".

Jalil, who set the April 30 deadline on an instruction from Hasina, sought advice from the AL leaders on pressing ahead with the antigovernment demonstration.

The ALCWC meeting in the final hours to the deadline was short-lived, but the sources hinted at a blow-by-blow discussion on the same issue on May 5, a day before Hasina leaves Bangladesh for the US.

Yesterday's meeting decided that the AL would stage demonstrations across the country tomorrow to protest mass arrests and demand immediate release of the people police arrested in an eight-day dragnet to quell antigovernment tempers.

AL Joint General Secretary Obaidul Kader told The Daily Star that the meeting formed a committee with AL presidium member Abdus Samad Azad as its chief to lay out programmes to celebrate the recognition of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the greatest Bangalee of all time by the listeners of BBC Bangla Service Radio.

Hasina and her colleagues will visit Tungipara, the birthplace of Bangabandhu, to place a wreath at his graveyard on May 3.

On the failure to dislodge the government by the deadline, Obaidul Kader said the meeting observed that people lost confidence in the government. "People showed by responding to the deadline that they don't trust the government."

"The government now thinks of people as its opponents. The ruling coalition tries to cling to power through repression and torture. The arrest of innocent people shows the coalition's desperation to stay in power."

The meeting called on the Election Commission to take steps to make the coming municipal elections free and fair. The meeting decided that the party leaders would visit their localities to monitor the local government polls.