Production order row with govt: ‘Protesting’ chairman Senate leads delegation to Ireland, Austria

ISLAMABAD: Days after skipping Senate meetings reportedly over production order row with the government, Chairman Senate Yousaf Raza Gilani is now leading a parliamentary delegation to two foreign countries.

The said delegation is visiting Ireland and Austria on the pretext of strengthening parliamentary cooperation with the two countries.

The delegation held meetings with top parliamentary officials from the host countries including Speaker of the Irish Parliament Verona Murphy, Andrea Eder-Gitschthaler, the President of the Federal Council of Austria, and Walter Rosenkranz, President of the National Council of Austria, according to an official statement.

Before these foreign visits, the Senate chief skipped all but one meeting of the 345th Senate session that was prorogued on Tuesday in reported protest against the non-implementation, on part of the government, of the production order of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senator Ejaz Chaudhary the Senate chief had issued earlier.

The Senate chairman only chaired the first meeting, held on 14th January, of the recently concluded Senate session, and remained absent in the remaining seven meetings.

Although, nothing official came from the Senate Secretariat regarding Gilani’s absence, reports suggested that the Senate chief was unhappy over the non-implementation of the production order of the PTI senator he had issued ahead of the Senate’s 345th session.

Some reports indicated that federal and Punjab governments had assured the Senate chairman that the production order would be implemented — but both the governments later backtracked — due to the intervention of some “powerful” quarters that did not want Chaudhary to appear in the Senate.

Gilani’s decision not to attend the Senate meeting has met criticism from both the treasury and the opposition lawmakers.

In their off-the-record interactions with journalists on the sidelines of the Senate session, some lawmakers from the two sides of the aisle were generally of the view that the chairman Senate displayed a “passive” approach by failing to get his instructions implemented by the Executive.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025