Tharoor trouble grows amid din
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Farooq Abdullah virtually suggested in a television interview that he resign — saying if he had been in a similar position he would have stepped down.
Mr Tharoor was unable to make his planned statement in the Lok Sabha on Friday as the Opposition kept up its uproar, demanding his resignation, finally forcing him to table it in the House as directed by Speaker Meira Kumar.
In his statement, Mr Tharoor said: “The notion that somebody is some sort of ‘proxy’ for me is frankly insulting to me and to the professionalism and business ethics of investors and their associates, particularly since I could not have any role in influencing the final outcome of a sealed bidding process.”
“I have neither invested nor received a rupee for my mentorship of the team. Irrespective of my personal relationships with any of the consortium members, I have not benefited, and do not intend to benefit in any way financially from my association with the team now or at a later stage,” he said.
“My role in mentoring the Kerala consortium was throughout within the bounds of appropriate conduct for a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram and a member of the Union council of ministers. No misuse of my official position was involved. The issue has nothing to do with my ministry. As a minister, I was in no position to influence the bid process, let alone its outcome,” his statement read.
The Opposition parties have been gunning for Mr Tharoor’s removal from the government ever since a controversy broke out over the IPL Kochi franchise bid.
Mr Tharoor strongly denied any misuse of his official position, but the Opposition, particularly the BJP, has stepped up pressure on the government for his removal. It said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should come to Parliament and make a statement on why he had not sought the minister’s resignation or removed him from the government. “We want a structured debate. We need a statement from the government. But the government is not ready for it,” BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad told reporters. The Congress indicated on Friday that it was keeping its distance from the minister and that “all is not well” for Mr Tharoor, saying his fate would be decided by the Prime Minister after he returns from his overseas visit on Saturday. “The ball is in the PM’s court,” a highly-placed Congress source said. This appears significant as it came hours after Mr Tharoor’s personal statement tabled in the Lok Sabha.
Sources said that Mr Tharoor’s meeting with party president Sonia Gandhi was simply to enable him to put his side of the story before her. “Mrs Gandhi just gave him a patient hearing,” they said, clearly implying that this should not mean that the minister had got a reprieve.
Ducking questions on whether the party was satisfied with the explanation by Mr Tharoor, they said that with the income-tax authorities questioning IPL commissioner Lalit Modi in Mumbai and launching an inquiry into the ownership of different teams, the Prime Minister would have the facts of the case with him.
A senior minister who did not want to be identified described Mr Tharoor as a “live bomb” for the party.
On Friday morning, Mrs Sonia Gandhi chaired a strategy session with senior party leaders, including finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, defence minister A.K. Antony and her political secretary Ahmed Patel.
The IPL Kochi franchise controversy involving Mr Tharoor brought Parliament to a standstill on Friday, with both Houses being adjourned amid vociferous Opposition demands for his removal. The Rajya Sabha plunged into turmoil as the Opposition demanded a full-fledged discussion on the entire controversy, leading to adjournment of the House for the day.
The trouble started soon after the House met, with BJP members demanding the suspension of Question Hour and taking up the Tharoor issue. As the protests continued, Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourned the House within minutes till noon. When the House reassembled, BJP member M. Venkaiah Naidu, joined by SP, AIADMK and JD(U) members, said the government was not taking the Opposition’s concerns seriously, and BJP members then trooped into the well. The Chair then adjourned the House till Monday.
In the Lok Sabha, Question Hour could not be taken up, and the House had to be adjourned twice on the issue — once till noon and then till 2 pm, after Mr Tharoor tabled his statement amid pandemonium. When the House reconvened at 2 pm, SP members trooped into the well, asking the government to sack Mr Tharoor, and then BJP members also joined in.
In his statement, Mr Tharoor said his ministerial position “gave me no advantage ... that could have been used to benefit the Kerala bid. Indeed, my ministerial position was altogether irrelevant to the bid.”
“No money has changed hands, and associates are expected to earn equity by promoting Rendezvous’ activities over the next 10 years. In other words, whatever benefits might accrue to the ‘sweat equity’ associates in future depends on their work for Rendezvous and has nothing to do with me,” he said.
Mr Tharoor said it was “unworthy” for any member of the House to imply that a reputed business professional and entrepreneur can, because of her gender, only be seen as a front for someone else. And in an apparent attack on IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, he said it was “essential in a democracy that institutions of interest to the general public were run openly rather than restricting their opportunities to a favoured few.”
Mr Tharoor said the allegation that he had indirectly received personal benefits from this enterprise because the Rendezvous management included a “close friend” was “particularly wounding”. It was clear, he said, that the “real motive behind the controversy ... created around him” was to make the Kochi team unviable, and to assign his IPL franchise elsewhere.
“I believe all fair-minded Indians would hope such tactics will not be allowed to prevail. The allegations are baseless, ill-founded and ill-motivated. I trust, Madam Speaker, that I have clarified my position to the satisfaction of this august House,” the statement read.
Age Correspondent
