BJP MPs walk out of parliamentary panel meet on Covid vaccine development

High drama was witnessed on Wednesday during a parliamentary committee meeting on COVID-19 vaccine development during which several BJP MPs walked out stating that discussion over vaccine policies were not on the agenda.

The meeting was chaired by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on the agenda of vaccine development for COVID-19 and genetic sequencing of coronavirus and its variants.

Meanwhile, some opposition party MPs wanted to discuss vaccine policies, but BJP MPs disagreed and staged a protest against the chairman as vaccine policies were not on the agenda.

BJP MPs walked out of the meeting hall demanding votes to discuss vaccine policies and other non-agenda issues.Later on Ramesh's assurance, all of them were called back to the meeting.

The meeting was called to hear the views of Professor K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India, Dr. V K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog and Chairman, National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for COVID-19 (NEGVAC), and the representatives of the Departments of Biotechnology and Scientific and Industrial Research.