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| Congress feels the burden of Tharoor's IPL cricket baggage | | | ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, Apr 14: The IPL cricket bag carried by Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is turning out to be too heavy not only for him but also for ruling Congress party.
Thus, the top echelons of the party have stepped in to take the stock of the entire affair amid an Opposition outcry for showing the Minister the doors of the Union Council of Ministers.
Since yesterday Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been discussing the Kochi IPL team controversy with party colleagues like Union Minister SM Krishna and Rajeev Shukla .
Today there have been reports that Tharoor has been summoned by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who is virtually holding the charge of Union Cabinet during the current week-long tour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to United States and Brazil.
Though Tharoor has mounted a formidable defence by issuing a statement yesterday that blamed Indian Premier League cricket commissioner Lalit Modi of turning hostile to Kochi team since he favoured another franchisee for Ahmedabad team for entry in IPL cricket, the odds against the Minister are turning out to be too heavy to be wished away.
The reason for this is that Tharoor's admittedly close friend Sunanda Pushkar whose family hails from Jammu and who has businesses in UAE is said to have acquired a Rs 70 crore stake in the IPL franchise won by Rendezvous World Sports Limited for Kochi out of free stocks of the company.
After this allegation by Modi who questioned the share owners details among other things like company's structure, Sunanda Pushkar issues a statement, saying: "In view of my extensive international experience as a business executive, marketing manager and entrepreneur, I was invited to assist Rendezvous particularly in the areas of fund-raising, networking elsewhere; event management; and brand building.
"Because this is a start-up effort, I was told that in lieu of a salary they would grant me minor equity in Rendezvous in return for my efforts -- which is a common practice across the world for start-ups and projects of this nature. I should stress that I have accepted no salary or expenses and am conscious that the equity remains only on paper for the foreseeable future. However, with the equity comes an opportunity to participate in the management and promotion of Rendezvous and in particular of its IPL team, a challenge I welcome."
She also said that she was no proxy for Tharoor: "My own business interests and assets are substantial, and efforts to besmirch Tharoor by presenting me as a proxy for him are personally insulting for me as a woman and as a friend. I have built up a respectable and successful career while coping with widowhood and raising a child as a single mother. Yet I have been reduced to a caricature in the media, portrayed with inaccuracies and falsehoods,"
Her statement also shows her prior interest and offers to join the IPL business and, thus, she has come down heavily upon her detractors who are being accused by her, other Renendezvous functionaries and Tharoor who convinced them to bid for his home Kochi and a team for it for a whopping $333 million.
Meanwhile, an agency report from Washington says that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said responding to questions regarding Thraoor's IPL controversy that he has to get to know the facts first and, thus, cannot promise action against the junior Minister for External Affairs because of media reports.
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