"I don't think about taking revenge. Even my father's killers were brought to book," Hasina, a former prime minister told the India Tribune yesterday accusing the caretaker government of not fulfilling its promise for holding elections.

"There was a mass movement when the caretaker government assumed office. Their first job was to hold elections. But they haven't done that yet," said the AL chief who was scheduled to deliver a speech at a large rally in London around 9:30pm Bangladeshi time.

The UK chapter of AL organised the rally, members of which told The Daily Star last night that leaders, activists and supporters of the party from across Europe came there to hear Sheikh Hasina speak.

Hasina, the elder daughter of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, said she knows that some people in Bangladesh 'are playing games', but she firmly believes that 'the law will take its own course'.

Over Law Adviser Mainul Hosein's comment that some AL and BNP leaders had encouraged the interim government to keep her out of the country, Hasina said she does not believe that could be true. "I don't believe anyone in Awami League was opposed to me during this crisis or that they collaborated with the caretaker government to keep me out of the country," she said.

Hasina said the party elected her as its president while she was in exile. "I never said I wanted to be its president. They picked me, the party workers -- all 2,800 councillors -- voluntarily elected me. So then why would they try and keep me out?" asked the AL chief.

She said, "There are some people who have no support and who are ambitious to come to power. Perhaps they instigated these rumours."

She went on, "I was born in a political family. I grew up in a political family. We learnt to support our distressed people. We learnt to make sacrifices for them."

"My father had a dream of building a Golden Bangladesh. I plan to fulfil that dream," she said.

Replying to another query, the AL chief dismissed outright any suggestion that the crisis might have helped unite the two major parties' chiefs against a common foe.

Talking to The Daily Star last night Abdus Sobhan Golap, an assistant secretary to the AL subcommittee on international affairs who was accompanying Hasina in London, said the AL chief yesterday met Dr Charles Tannock, a member of the European Union (EU) parliament and sought support from the EU parliament for holding a free and fair election in Bangladesh.

Golap said Tannock wanted to know when Hasina will depart for Bangladesh, whether there is any danger to her life, and how they could help her and her country.

In response, the AL president told him that she could fly anytime to her country, but before departing she will have to keep the appointments she has with ministers and lawmakers of the British parliament, different professionals, human rights groups, an appointment with Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon on May 3, and with other people.

"Only then I will fly for my country," Hasina was quoted by Golap. He also said the AL chief told Tannock that she has not been officially informed of the government's decision withdrawing the restriction on her return home, and that she learned about the decision from a government press note issued in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Society of London School of Economics is scheduled to organise a discussion tomorrow with Hasina as chief guest. Manzila Pola Uddin, a Bangladesh born Labour Party politician who is also the first Muslim woman member of the House of Lords will preside over the discussion.