Did mystery vice-chairman buy Sunanda Pushkar’s IPL stake

There seems to be a new stakeholder in Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd, one of the partners of the Kochi Indian Premier League (IPL) team. Even Lalit Modi may not know about it.

A certain Dilip Kumar, claiming to be the vice-chairman of Rendezvous Sports, is “assigning mandate” to sports management firms to seek sponsorship for the Kochi team. And not many in the franchise itself seem to be aware of it, or of him.
Inquires and sources in Dubai reveal that the new ‘vice-chairman’ of the company is a man involved in the real estate business in the Gulf. More pertinently, he is an associate of Sunanda Pushkar, friend of former minister of state for external affairs Shashi
Tharoor. Both are believed to have worked together in Dubai some time back.

The mystery centres around the sudden elevation of Dilip Kumar. His name doesn’t figure in the original list of owners of the company, as revealed by Modi in his now-famous April 11 tweets. Nor has there been any official announcement by Rendezvous about a change in shareholder pattern.

All this leads to the speculation, and a growing belief, that Pushkar may have sold off her stake — her sweat equity — to her associate. It is still not clear whether she has informed the income tax and FERA authorities. What is known is that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is not aware of it.

“We’re not aware of any change of equity in the Kochi team,” said a BCCI and IPL official. Pushkar holds about 18% of Rendezvous’s 25% equity in the Kochi firm, which translates to about 5% stake in the new IPL team.

A letter, a copy of which is with DNA, which is signed by Dilip Kumar under the Rendezvous letterhead, authorises a couple of persons to “initiate contact and negotiate terms of sponsorship on our behalf”. Dilip Kumar could not be reached for comment as his mobile phone was switched off while none of the Kochi consortium officials could be contacted on this matter.

The letter has been in circulation among the sports management’s companies with a ‘mandate’ from the Rendezvous vice-chairman to seek sponsorship for the team. Till date, the company is not known to have a chairman. At least, it has not been made public if the position is occupied. Apart from Pushkar, Kisan Gaikwad,  Shailendra Gaikwad, Pushpa Gaikwad, Puja Gulathi, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad and Sundip Agarwal are the known partners of the company.

In the letter, Dilip Kumar says: “We are pleased to assign the mandate of seeking sponsorship for the Kochi IPL cricket team to Jayant Bhokare and Shyam Haridas for India and the Middle East. They are authorised to initiate contact and negotiate terms of sponsorship on our behalf.” It could not be immediately ascertained who are the persons whose names are mentioned in the letter.