'Shameful': Proposed bill allowing blue passports for ex-legislators’ kids comes under scrutiny on social media

Politicians, journalists, and experts alike have used their social media accounts to criticize the passage by a committee of senators of a bill providing blue passports for children of former lawmakers up to the age of 28.

The passing of the bill will put the former members of parliament on an equal footing with the already available provision for the dependent children of retired government officials of grade 22.

State minister for interior Tallal Chaudhry has denied the fact that he supports the bill because he rejected it at the time of its presentation in the senate.

Further, he stated that he had informed the committee of senators on interior and narcotics control that passed the bill that the issue should first be discussed in the federal cabinet.

Senior PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafique condemned the bill, comparing it to the KP assembly’s recently approved bill that allowed additional privileges for lawmakers, adding that such actions undermine elected houses.

“Until the extraordinary privileges enjoyed by politicians, bureaucrats, higher judiciary, and senior military officers are brought to an appropriate level, injustice will continue to gnaw at society like termites, fostering social discord and public unrest,” Rafique wrote on X.

Journalist Iftikhar Firdous termed the legislation an attempt to secure “foreign escape routes”.

He said Pakistan deserved “leaders whose futures are invested here, not parked in offshore accounts while asking the world to invest in the country”.

“If you don’t have skin in the game, you shouldn’t be deciding its future,” he wrote on X.

Arifa Noor, another journalist, wondered: “Why do parliamentarians’ kids under the age of 28 need diplomatic passports?”