The leaders of the key opposition party say the godfathers who earned the last AL government 'bad name' are trying to re-emerge in party ranks after its activities to put its own house in order by holding long-overdue party unit councils gathered pace.

The general secretary of the party's Fatulla thana unit in Narayanganj, Md Shahid Ullah, resigned from the post yesterday in what political analysts in Dhaka say was a fallout of the godfather syndrome.

On Wednesday, central AL leaders including General Secretary Abdul Jalil suffered humiliation in Laxmipur when the alleged sidekicks of Abu Taher vandalised the local circuit house where the council was taking place.

The attackers blamed the central leadership for announcing a committee without election, an accusation shrugged off by frontline central leaders who said the votes of 192 councillors could put 'the godfathers' men' on the committee.

"After a glaring media coverage of the godfathers' activities during the Awami League rule (1996-2001), we can't allow known troublemakers to get berth in any party unit," an AL policymaker said.

Wednesday's trouble was a reminder of the May 31 attack on an extended Feni district unit meeting allegedly by the supporters of former lawmaker Joinal Hazari who was apparently earned most of the party's disrepute.

The AL's expulsion of some Hazari sidekicks and commissioning of a probe headed by Syed Ashraful Islam against the alleged 'boss of gang' was attended by great hopes of party-men.

But six months into the probe formation, their hopes have congealed into depression, as the finding of the body is yet to see daylight.

Many fear that local leaders may distance themselves from the godfather-shadowed units in imitation of Shahid Ullah if the party fails to purge them.

In his resignation letter to the convener of the Narayanganj district AL, Shahid said he was resigning from the party post with immediate effect as the 'criminal-extortionist group' that earned bad name for the party in the past resurrected again.

Earlier, a decision to rid the party of leaders having 'godfather image' was taken at an AL secretariat meeting on March 28.

The meeting discussed, in detail, how the 'godfather' image of Hazari of Feni, Shamim Osman of Narayanganj, Taher of Laxmipur and Abul Hasnat Abdullah of Barisal eroded AL's votes in the October 2001 ballot.

Within four days of the meeting, the AL leadership took the move for removing Hazari from Feni district unit's general secretary position.

A joint meeting of the AL's district information and research secretaries in Dhaka in late July also drew a conclusion that infighting in the party units across the country was the real culprit for the AL's debacle in the last general elections.

Despite an overwhelming opinion of cohesion in the party rank and file, intra-party chaos and factional fighting continue to dog the main opposition party mapping out a greater anti-government movement with like-minded political forces to what it says free the nation from the misrule of the four-party alliance government.

Over the last few months, the festering rift between presidium members Abdus Samad Azad and Suranjit Sengupta galvanized in outrages, a congress of the party's youth front, the Jubo League, ended up in a fierce gunfight in Sylhet and the councils and meetings of the AL and its front organisations were vandalised in Feni, Brahmanbaria, Comilla and Gopalganj.

Shrugging off the events, Jalil said the party was prepared to embark on the movement.

Jalil is upbeat that despite missing out several deadlines the AL would be able to hold councils of thana and district units by mid-January before launching the movement.

On councils, he said so far the party could complete councils in 11 of 69 organisational districts and the schedules for 16 more districts were fixed.

Councils in over 80 percent thana units have already been completed, he added.