The Opposition jointly walked out of an all-party meeting this morning to protest the presence of 20 rebel Trinamool Congress members there even as the government defended inviting the dissidents.The meeting — hosted by Defence Minister and Deputy Leader of House in Lok Sabha Rajnath Singh — started with a symbolic protest by the Opposition that stayed out of the proceedings for some time and then returned to join the meeting.Even the CPM, the TMC’s arch rival, joined the walkout with party leader John Brittas saying, “We did not walk out in support of the TMC. We walked out in support of parliamentary democracy and principles.”TMC leader Mahua Moitra, who attended the all-party meeting on her party’s behalf, said the entire Opposition, including the Congress, Samajwadi Party, DMK, JMM, Aam Aadmi Party, National Conference, Left parties, Shiv Sena (UBT) walked out of the all-party meeting in protest because the so-called Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), which is an unrecognised party, was called for the meeting.Moitra said this was done even when the strength of the All-India Trinamool Congress in the Lok Sabha list provided by the House table office was shown as 28 members as of today.She said, “The Speaker has not approved the requested merger of these so-called rebel 20 MPs with the NCPI. The 20 disqualification petitions against them are still pending.”“After the 91st Constitution Amendment, there is no room for a separate bloc. So on what grounds did the Parliamentary Affairs Minister extend an invitation to these 20 rebel MPs and how are they attending this meeting? We have registered our strong protest and walked out as a symbol of our protest. We thank all the Opposition parties for staging a walkout,” Moitra said.Meanwhile, rebel bloc leaders Kakoli Ghosh and Sudip Bandopadhyay attended the entire meeting, saying they came at Rijiju’s invitation.“We want the development of our constituencies and this was earlier not possible. Earlier, we were all under threat,” Kakoli said, adding that the walk out was not proper as the meeting was called to debate parliamentary agenda and was not a political platform.Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju defended the invitation to 20 rebels saying they could not be ignored as their petition to sit separately from the TMC in Lok Sabha had been accepted by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla. “They are also part of the House. How can we ignore them,” asked Rijiju.