Modi run-out decision pending
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Days after he “outed” details of the Kochi bid for an IPL team to join the lucrative league from 2010, leading to the resignation of minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor from the Council of Ministers, the fallout now threatens to consume the high-flying IPL commissioner.
On Tuesday, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar — who had so far backed Mr Modi — held talks with Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar, and board vice-president Rajiv Shukla and senior Opposition leader Arun Jaitley at two separate meetings in New Delhi. A direct outcome of the discussions was a decision to end the growing brouhaha around the IPL by asking Mr Modi to go. Towards this end, a governing council of the IPL has been called on April 26, a day after the final of this year’s tournament where the move to depose Mr Modi is to be initiated.
Mr Pawar, however, said later on Tuesday: “Our (BCCI) total approach in the governing council will be... they will take collective, unanimous decisions, and give future direction to Indian cricket.”
Earlier on Tuesday, after crucial discussions with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Union home minister P. Chidambaram, Mr Pawar called BCCI president Shashank Manohar. Mr Manohar flew in from Nagpur and discussed the “entire IPL situation”. Asked whether Mr Modi would accept the governing council’s decision, Mr Pawar said, “Don’t forget Mr Modi is also a vice-president of the BCCI. We always take collective and unanimous decisions which everyone is party to, including Lalit Modi.”
Mr Pawar said Mr Manohar suggested that Mr Modi should call the governing council meeting on April 26 and that he was confident of the BCCI president giving leadership to Indian cricket. Mr Manohar was hand-picked by Mr Pawar to succeed him as BCCI president.
A senior BCCI official told this newspaper that Mr Modi’s days were indeed numbered. “The IPL is not Modi’s idea. The league system was invented by the Americans 80 years ago. We just copied it. To say Modi is the reason we have IPL would be foolish. It’s like saying Modi invented the wheel, when all he did was to bring it to India. Justice will be done. He’ll be kicked out.”
Though he had been summoned to New Delhi to meet former BCCI president Sharad Pawar, Mr Modi was still in Mumbai till late Tuesday evening. A majority of the IPL’s governing council is apparently in favour of Mr Modi’s exit given the potential for embarrassment and official action in the aftermath of Mr Tharoor’s resignation.
Meanwhile, in the wake of reports about him, his relatives and party leaders, Mr Sharad Pawar’s daughter, member of Parliament Supriya Sule, and senior NCP leader and Union minister Praful Patel rejected reports that they or their kith and kin had any stakes in the IPL teams.
Ms Sule said, “I say with full conviction that my husband or family has nothing to do with any of these issues. We always stay miles away from it. Yes, we are avid cricket watchers, my husband, my kids, my family, and that’s where the buck stops.”
Mr Patel also rejected the allegations. “I have nothing to do with BCCI, IPL or its bidding process. It’s a slander campaign against me. I don’t know who is behind these reports. I’m ready to face any probe. It will bring out the truth and prove these reports wrong. The probe will completely clear the air,” Mr Patel said.
He charged a section of the ruling party with launching a “slanderous campaign” against him in the matter. “The Congress party per se is not involved in the controversy but a section of it is spreading a slanderous campaign against me,” Mr Patel told reporters outside Parliament. “I am happy that the government has ordered a probe and now the truth will come out. I have nothing to do with IPL, this I can assure you,” Mr Patel said.
Reacting to the same newspaper report, Mr Patel said, “I do not have anything to do with cricket, IPL, BCCI or the bidding process, and there is no question of holding any kind of stake ... My daughter works as a junior intern with the IPL... that’s the extent of my involvement (with the IPL),” he said.
Asked about reports that Mr Pawar and he backed the two groups that lost the bids last month for new franchises, Mr Patel denied any association with the Adani Group of Ahmedabad or the Videocon group from Pune. “Anyway they didn’t win the bids... If we were so powerful, they would have got the teams,” he said.
Describing Mr Pawar’s role in Indian cricket and in the BCCI as “larger than life”, Mr Patel said he would welcome an inquiry so that his and his party’s names can be cleared.
Sahara India chairman Subrata Roy, who had said that Mr Modi had done a commendable job in conceptualising and bringing IPL to its present stature, said nobody is above the law. “Let the law of the land take its course. I am confident that the ongoing probes will conclude in clearing the matter in an accurate way,” Mr Roy said in a statement.
Union minister Farooq Abdullah sought to defend Mr Modi, saying the IPL commissioner should be given a chance to reply to the charges made against him. “Let us not become judges without hearing the poor man. If there is a charge against him, let him reply to them,” he told reporters outside Parliament. Dr Abdullah, a member of the IPL governing council, was asked if Mr Modi should resign from his post. “It would be wrong for me to say whether somebody should go or not,” Dr Abdullah, also president of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association, remarked. On whether the government was engaged in a witch-hunt against certain individuals involved in the controversy, he said, “Why should the government witch-hunt? What has it got to do with witch-hunting?”
Dr Abdullah said fingers were being pointed at Mr Modi due to the hype around the IPL. “That is why he is in trouble. That is why Shashi Tharoor is in trouble... Handsome man,” he said.
Meanwhile, the corporate affairs ministry directed the Registrar of Companies to collect within a week all details on IPL franchises, the bidding process and the sweat equity. The order, issued Tuesday, asked the RoC to get information on memorandums of association and also franchise agreements.
In a related development, a team of economic investigators is being sent by the government to Mauritius to probe certain companies after a preliminary probe by Central investigative agencies showed that large amounts of funds were moved through specific Mauritius-based firms set up in 2008, when the IPL came into being.
Official sources said the special team, consisting of members of the economic wing of the finance ministry, would leave for the tax haven soon. They said a Dubai-based venture, owned by a few NRIs, has also come under the scanner.
Rahul Banerji
with agency inputs
