The Modi-Tharoor spat has brought the card house tumbling down

COMMENT

MIDDAY
IPL commissioner Lalit Modi as is his wont finds himself in the warsonce again. When the Indian Premier League was being rigged up and thebidding process was completed in January, 2008; there was a whiff ofscandal in the air. Emerging Media which bagged the Jaipur franchisechristening it Rajasthan Royals had Modi's brother in law SureshChellaram as the lead investor in the consortium while the consortiumof Mohit Burman, Ness Wadia, Karan Paul and Priety Zinta which baggedthe Mohali franchise Kings XI Punjab also had a Modi connection.Mohit's brother Gaurav based in the UK is Modi's step son in law.While allegations of IPL being the Indian Parivar League surfaced andthen got subsumed in the din created by the phenomenal success ofseason one, motormouths in the grapevine business spoke about howconnections mattered in the cash awash bulge bracket IPL.
But Modi rode that one out just as he has ridden many othercontroversies over the last couple of years. But controversy and Modigo hand in hand. So, on Monday morning, media was buzzing with Modi'slatest tweets. Ironical that he had tweeted on the government's veryown Mr Twitter - minister of state for external affairs - ShashiTharoor in a manner of speaking. Tharoor's dalliances with Twitterhave got him into enough trouble already. But this time, Modi used thesame weapon to open a can of worms. Time out...Rewind...
Modi's tweets revealed the real shareholders, the shadow promoters.This after MoS Tharoor has vehemently denied any economic interest inthe Kochi winning franchise Rendezvous Sports World. He has beentelling all and sundry that he proved to be the matchmaker at thewedding, bringing various like minded people together to make thewinning bid of $333.33 million. But by Monday the 'mentor's' statedposition proved to be fallacy. Which raises questions of integrity andethicality. Why? Of the 25 per cent shadow promoters who hold freeequity in the franchise, as much as 18 to 20 per cent is owned bySunanda Pushkar. So, who is Sunanda Pushkar? On Monday, media reportedthat Tharoor is planning to divorce his second wife - Christa Giles, acandian civil servant who works with the UN on disarmament issues.
And, yes, he is planning to marry Sunanda Pushkar whose Linkedinprofile reveals that she is sales manager in Dubai with TECOMInvestments. Tecom is a subsidiary of Dubai Holdings which is engagedin the commercial real estate industry. That Modi is fuming becauseenormous pressure was exerted on him by a central minister not toreveal Sunanda Pushkar's name. Now, if that is true, then there issomething seriously amiss. For it is obvious that the central ministeris Tharoor. Rendezvous may have hit back by raising Cain over Kings XIPunjab and Rajasthan Royals etymology. But then the question is whydid Tharoor lie? Rendezvous may have done the smart thing by takingthis matter where the waters have been muddied to the BCCI and itspresident Shashank Manohar. That however, does not alter the legalityand legitimacy of Tharoor's involvement with Rendezvous, somethingwhich he has denied outright. Will the Congress close ranks againstthe interloper or will Modi's tweet be the end of Tharoor, even as hegot away with his own tweets. Rendezvous now wants to sue Modi sinceit believes that Modi is favouring Ahmedabad over Kochi.
The opacity of shareholding in IPL team ownership structures has beenan issue for sometime now. By divulging that 25 per cent free equitywas held by Kisan, Shailender & Pushpa Gaikwad, Sunanda Pushkar, PujaGulathi, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad and Sundip Agarwal, Modi hasensured that Banquo's ghost has come back to haunt Rendezvous.Meanwhile, all eyes on Tharoor.