India, July 17 -- US Speaker Mike Johnson has suffered another humiliating political defeat at the hands of his own party on Thursday as he was forced to abandon plans to pass a veterans benefits bill designed to be one of the GOP's big legislative wins before the November midterms.

Just minutes before the bill was slated to come to the floor, Johnson and his team pulled it from the schedule as holdouts within his own conference refused to back the measure, two people in the room familiar with the development briefed the US broadcasters.

The setback came despite a last-minute, closed-door effort by the speaker to salvage the vote and marked the second time in a month that House leadership has been forced to shelve the legislation.

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