The government on Wednesday made a further retreat to include the political parties and the chief ministers among the stakeholders to be consulted before allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail trade. As a result, parliament was back to normal business after two weeks of the logjam in the winter session.

In a brief statement in the Lok Sabha at the start of the sitting, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee announced that the November 24 cabinet decision to permit 51 percent FDI in multi-brand retail trade was "suspended" until a consensus was developed through consultations with various "stakeholders". A similar statement was made by commerce minister Anand Sharma in the Rajya Sabha.

Also read: Par logjam ends; Govt puts FDI decision on backburner

There was, however, a silence on the related decision to allow 100 percent FDI instead of 51 percent in single-brand retail to permit the multinationals open their own products' superstores instead of the present condition requiring them to take the Indian partners.

Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar disallowed a bunch of adjournment motions by almost all opposition parties on the retail FDI, stating that "after the statement of the leader of house (Mukherjee) in the matter, no element of urgency remains" to suspend all business and discuss the issue.

Also read: FDI in retail, lazy policy making in bulk

At an all-party meeting convened by Mukherjee to end the parliament impasse, the opposition insisted that the political parties and the state governments should also be included in conslutations which should not be limited to the diect stakeholders, that is, trade and industry, kirana merchants, small industries and farmers, as the government was trying to convince them on advantages of the FDI and implement the decision before parliament's budget session in February.

Mukherjee immediately conceded the point and expanded the definition of the stakeholders to include the state chief ministers and political parties. He told the house that the decision can never be implemented without the chief ministers and as such they will certainly be consulted. He also appealed to transact the held-up business since only 10 more days are left. (In fact, 12 more sittings are left.)

Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj was welcomed the government putting on hold the decision and affirmed that it is no defeat of the government, but a victory of the democracy. "Bowing to the wishes of the people (Jan Bhavna) is no defeat for the government as it only strengthens democracy," she said.

The only dissent to the opposition's truce with the government came from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati as its leader Dara Singh led a walkout of the party, protesting that it should be a total rollback and not just a holdback.

CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and CPM leader Sitaram Yechuri, however, said it is a "virtual rollback" as the government committed in the all-party meeting not to implement the decision until a full consensus is reached. Dasgupta complemented the government for its initiative to put parliament back on rails.

Trinamul Congress leader Sudhip Bandopadhyay, however, claimed it was a victory of his party and his leader Mamata Banerjee for stopping the "anti-people" move of the government as also for helping in ending the stalemate.

The government on Nov 24 had announced its move to throw open India’s $450 billion retail market to foreign supermarket giants like Walmart, before the decision ran into a cacophony of dissent from both its allies and the opposition.

For nearly two weeks parliament was stalled by the opposition which demanded a "non-negotiable recall" of the cabinet move to allow 51 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail and 100 percent in single-brand retail.

Led by prime minister Manmohan Singh, everyone in the government and the ruling Congress initially refused to back down from the long-awaited economic reform, but it ultimately let it be known to Mamata on Saturday that the step is being put on hold for wider consultations.