New Delhi, April 18: Controversial minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor is understood to have submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh late on Sunday night. This has been accepted, and forwarded to President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan. An official announcement is expected later in the night or the early hours of Monday.
The Prime Minister summoned Mr Tharoor late Sunday night for the second of two meetings in the day at 7 Race Course Road, where the minister was clearly told to put in his papers. Earlier, a consensus emerged at a meeting of the Congress core group that Mr Tharoor’s continuance in the wake of his involvement in the IPL Kochi team controversy was damaging both the government and the Congress, and that he should be asked to go. Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was at the meeting, is learnt to have agreed with this view.
A clear indication of the leadership’s unhappiness with Mr Tharoor was evident from the Congress’ studied silence on the issue of his continuance in the government. Mr Tharoor had met Dr Singh in the morning as well, when he had gone to Race Course Road in his official ministerial vehicle. For the late-night meeting, however, he travelled from his Lodhi Estate bungalow in a private car.
The core group meeting, which was attended by senior ministers Pranab Mukherjee, A.K. Antony and P. Chidambaram as well as Mr Ahmed Patel, political secretary to the Congress president, took stock of the situation in the light of the Kochi IPL franchise controversy, which had united the Opposition — including the BJP and the Left — on the floor of Parliament. Business could not be transacted in either House of Parliament on Friday due to this, and it was felt that if Mr Tharoor remained a member of the government the same would continue on Monday and later.
Mrs Sonia Gandhi met the Prime Minister one on one before the core group discussions, after which Mr Antony, Mr Chidambaram and Mr Patel joined them. Mr Mukherjee, who was away in West Bengal, cut short his visit there and rushed back to New Delhi to attend the meeting.
The Congress Party and the government have been trying to distance themselves from Mr Tharoor ever since the Kochi IPL ownership issue came to the light, amid allegations that he had used his office to help “close friend” Sunanda Pushkar acquire “free equity” in the franchise, which was valued at around Rs 70 crores. His statement in Parliament on Friday, which had to be tabled in the Lok Sabha as it could not be heard amid the din created by the Opposition, was also seen by the party as a weak and ineffectual effort to defend himself.
While the top Congress leaders remained tightlipped after the core group meeting, which lasted for nearly two hours at the Prime Minister’s residence, it was realised that the party and the government would have decide whether to defend Mr Tharoor or to disown him before Parliament met on Monday morning. It was felt in the party that the Prime Minister should not be forced into a situation where he would be forced to defend the junior minister on the floor of the House, sources said.
Other sources said Mrs Gandhi was extremely unhappy over the turn of events, and many leaders felt that Ms Sunanda Pushkar’s offer to return the so-called “sweat equity” amounted to an admission of guilt.
PTI adds: In Dubai, 48-year-old Sunanda Pushkar made a last-ditch attempt to save Mr Tharoor by voluntarily offering to surrender her free equity that she got from the consortium which bought the IPL Kochi franchise for Rs 1,533 crores.
“Given the deeply unpleasant publicity surrounding my involvement, however, I can no longer imagine being able to find the enthusiasm required to associate myself with any IPL activity in the foreseeable future,” she said in a statement to Rendezvous Sports, one of the stakeholders in IPL Kochi. Her lawyer Ashish Mehta said she had taken the decision on Saturday.
Earlier, both the BJP and the Left parties had made it clear that Ms Pushkar’s abandoning her stake would not let Mr Tharoor off the hook as far as they were concerned. Stepping up pressure, the BJP said: “The stain of corruption is not washed by the return of the bribe money.” Said BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad: “It is a case of stinking corruption.”
Venkatesh Kesari