The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) governor D Subbarao today met West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, a day after she skipped their scheduled meeting.
Subbarao, who is in Kolkata for the central bank's board meeting, was slated to pay a courtesy visit to the chief minister on Wednesday. It has been a custom to meet the chief minister whenever a RBI governor visits a state.
However, the meeting was cancelled without the state government or RBI offering an explanation.
"I was to meet the chief minister yesterday. But since she was travelling it led to a postponement of the meeting. I'm going to meet her today," Subbarao told reporters after the central bank's board meeting here today.
The governor met Banerjee and a few ministers including Amit Mitra, the finance minister of West Bengal at the Writers' Building.
Yesterday, there were different accounts on why the chief minister decided to scrap the meeting.
The most popular reason (three people confirmed it): Banerjee was watching the parliamentary proceedings on FDI in retail that was being telecasted live at the time of her scheduled meeting with RBI governor. Banerjee was certainly not pleased with the outcome as she has been resisting the move to allow foreign investors investing in the multi-brand retail sector.
Another reason was the chief minister was pressed for time as there was a state cabinet meeting. The cabinet meeting started at 6 PM and according to sources she presided over it for about 15 minutes.