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

Politicians, journalists and experts have taken to social media to criticise Friday’s approval by a Senate panel of a bill allowing blue passports for ex-legislators’ children under the age of 28.

If it becomes law, the legislation would bring ex-members of parliament in line with the existing entitlement available to dependent children of retired Grade-22 government officers.

State Minister for Interior Tallal Chaudhry denied that he supported the bill, saying he opposed it when it was introduced in the Senate.

He further asserted that he had told the Senate Standing Committee on Interior and Narcotics Control, which passed the legislation, that the matter should first be discussed with the federal cabinet and relevant stakeholders.

“Despite my reservations, the Senate & Standing Committee on Interior proceeded with its decision to pass the bill,” he said.

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 Fahd Husain called the bill “shameless”, adding that the move was proof of the widening trust deficit between “elite politicians” and the citizens of the country.

Quoting Husain’s post, digital expert Habibullah Khan remarked, “Our ordinary passport is laughed at because of their inability to make policies and pass reforms to generate wealth in this country and spread it equitably.”

He added that this bill allows the lawmakers to “bypass the consequences of their incompetence”.

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?”

Historian Ilhan Niaz, a professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, said that all official and diplomatic passports should be eliminated for everyone except for the officials themselves.

“Honour lies in declining privileges, not in exercising them or expanding their scope,” he added in a post on X.

Journalist and TV host Amir Zia made a similar suggestion, saying blue passports “should only be for officials on diplomatic assignments — and that too only until their term lasts”.

“Why should every MNA, MPA and senator along with their families get them? This is also a form of corruption. These undue privileges undermine democracy,” he wrote.

Umair Javed, a sociology professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums), remarked that the “Pakistani state exists to be mined for class and status mobility, [especially] by petit bourgeois and nouveau riche segments”.

“Recent legislation in KP reaffirms this too,” he said on X.

Business journalist Khaleeq Kiani said, “Pakistani nationality should be cancelled of those ashamed of green passport and seeking blue ones.”

He contended, “Green passport is a sign [of] national pride. If you don’t respect it, don’t expect outsiders will.”

Yousuf Nazar, former head of Citigroup’s emerging markets investments, commented that parliamentarians were only concerned with “their privileges, perks, and powers”.