BJP MPs on a parliamentary panel walked out of a meeting on Tuesday protesting against activist Medha Patkar and actor Prakash Raj being invited to depose as experts, calling them "anti-national", "urban Naxals" and "anti-development", sources said.

The boycott by the ruling party MPs forced the panel's chairman, Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, of the standing committee on rural development and panchayati raj to cancel the meeting. The meeting was called to discuss the implementation of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013.

The BJP MPs on the panel claimed they had not been informed in advance about Patkar and Raj being called to depose before the panel as experts. Congress MP Ulaka, however, told reporters that the names of Patkar and Raj had been cleared by the Lok Sabha Speaker's office.

"When the meeting started, the BJP MPs in a synchronised way started saying that Medha Patkar is 'anti-national', she had stopped development in four states. The BJP MPs said they would not listen to the experts. I requested them to stay back and listen, but they walked out," Ulaka told reporters.