New Delhi, Dec 17 (IANS): Union Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday criticised former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on walking out of the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence. Javadekar said this was an insult to the parliamentary system and asked Rahul to first learn to respect the constitutional institutions.

Rahul Gandhi had walked out of the meeting, held on Wednesday, alleging that he was not allowed to speak.

Speaking to the media here, Javadekar said, "Rahul Gandhi walked out of a Parliamentary Committee on Defence. In the last one and a half years, there have been a total of 14 meetings. He was present in just two of the meetings. He was absent in the other 12. He was not even present in the agenda-setting meeting for the year."

Targetting the Congress leader, Javadekar said, "In the two meetings that he attended, he will again say that important topics are not being discussed."

"This is an insult to the parliamentary system and constitutional institutions. Rahul Gandhi should learn to respect constitutional institutions or else his role in democracy will be negligible," Javadekar said.

The Minister also pointed out that when Rahul Gandhi was in power during the Congress-led UPA rule, he had torn a cabinet decision and had thrown it away in the dustbin.

"That is how much respect he has for the Constitutional procedures," Javadekar said.

His remarks came a day after Rahul Gandhi walked out of a meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence, accusing the panel of wasting time by discussing uniforms instead of Chinese aggression and national security.

According to sources, Rahul Gandhi tried to raise the issue of the Chinese aggression and better equipping the soldiers on the borders with China in Ladakh, but he was not allowed to speak by the committee's Chairman Jual Oram.

The sources claimed that the committee was discussing the uniforms of the three armed forces in the presence of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, when Rahul Gandhi tried to intervene saying that the time of the panel was being wasted by discussing uniforms instead of Chinese aggression on the borders and equipping the armed forces personnel in a better way.

The sources said that as he was not allowed to speak, the Congress leader walked out of the meeting. Two other Congress members, Rajiv Satav and Revanth Reddy, also left the meeting along with him.