ISLAMABAD, March 16: The parliamentary group of PML-Q is doing without a chief whip these days as no one has been selected for the job after the death of federal minister Abdus Sattar Lalika.

This is said to have caused the ruling party to put up a lacklustre performance during the current session of the National Assembly which has enabled the opposition to get away with some very hard hitting speeches against the president while debating his address to the joint session.

According to authoritative sources, a high-ranking officer of the president's team had telephonically expressed his disappointment with the performance of the parliamentary party leadership and asked them to take effective measures to give timely response to the fiery speakers of the opposition.

The sources said the president's camp was highly perturbed by the speech that was delivered by Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the acting president of PML-N and the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) on Monday.

A high official is said to have rung up the speaker's secretariat and discussed the issue in detail and reprimanded the people concerned for not inviting a treasury member immediately after an opposition member had spoken to debunk the accusations that were levelled against the person of Gen Musharraf.

The officer also advised the NA secretariat to arrange necessary training of the comparatively younger coalition group of MNAs so that they could deliver fitting replies when required to defend the government, particularly President Musharraf's policies.

The NA secretariat, according to the sources, had told the said officer that it was the duty of the parliamentary leader of the treasury benches to coordinate such matters with the secretariat which was not being done at the moment.