New Delhi, Jul 22 (IANS): Denied a discussion on the Agnipath scheme in the Standing Committee on Defence meeting, Congress MPs walked out on Friday.

Sources said that Congress Rajya Sabha MPs KC Venugopal and Uttam Kumar Reddy walked out from the meeting and some other opposition MPs followed suit.

The opposition MPS wanted to raise the issue of the Agnipath scheme but the chairman did not allow it as the agenda was something different, the sources.

KC Venugopal said Uttam Reddy, Danish Ali and I walked out in protest from the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence for not taking up the controversial Agnipath scheme despite our repeated requests and my earlier letter addressed to the Chairman, requesting a discussion.

"The Chairman turned a deaf ear to these crucial questions & the scheme was not discussed. We urged the Chairman to clarify; Why was the Parliament Standing Committee on Defence kept in the dark on the #AgnipathRecruitmentScheme? Why the scheme was not taken up in the committee's budget scrutiny meetings despite involving financial implications? No discussion in Parliament, no deliberations in the Parliament Standing Committees, thus goes the way of bulldozing legislations in the Modi era." he said.

The agenda was, "Consideration and adoption of the Draft Report on the Action Taken by the Government on the observations/ recommendations contained in the Twenty-Second Report of Standing Committee on Defence (17th Lok Sabha) on Demands for Grants of the Ministry of Defence for the year 2021-22 on Ordnance Factories, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Directorate General of Quality Assurance (DGQA) and National Cadet Corps (NCC) (Demand No. 20) (2) Chalking out of the future programme of the Committee."

The Congress has been against the Agnipath scheme and is pressing for its withdrawal.