Backed off on FDI to avoid mid-term polls: Pranab

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Congress MPs today that the government pushed the pause button on FDI in multi-brand retail to avoid mid-term polls — with the Trinamool refusing to extend support, the government simply did not have the numbers for the adjournment motion. Mukherjee told the Congress parliamentary party that although an adjournment motion is not a no-confidence motion, had the government lost, it would have been morally bound to seek a fresh mandate, sources who were present at the meeting said. “Never before did it happen in the country since independence that an ally of the government supported an adjournment motion against it,” Mukherjee said.

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