NEW DELHI: India's finance minister called a meeting of all party leaders Tuesday to try to end a deadlock over a huge corruption scandal that is threatening to paralyse parliament's budget session.
Pranab Mukherjee convened the talks in a bid to prevent a repeat of the last parliamentary session from October to December, during which no legislation was passed because of constant protests from the opposition.
Opposition leaders have been demanding a cross-party probe into the alleged $40 billion mobile phone licence scam, and have threatened further protests when parliament reconvenes on February 21.
The government has refused the opposition's demands over the cut-price sale of second-generation telecom licences in 2007-08, saying the matter was already the subject of two independent investigations.
Meira Kumar, the speaker of the lower house, met with leaders of the Congress and the chief opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday, and said both sides had expressed a "positive" attitude to ending the deadlock.
Former telecoms minister A. Raja was arrested last week over his role in the alleged scam, which has tainted the reputation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over his failure to act against corrupt officials.
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