Shashi Tharoor’s friend is mystery stakeholder in Team Kochi

The ‘mystery’ surrounding the Kochi consortium continued to linger a day after the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Rendezvous Sports World signed a formal franchise agreement. Also, the degree of involvement of mentor Shashi Tharoor, the minister of state for external affairs, is getting increasingly curiouser after the disclosure of the identity of one of the ‘secret partners’ of the new IPL team from Kerala.

The partner, Sunanda Pushkar, who holds 18% free equity in the
new franchise that made a staggering Rs1,550 crore-bid to bag the Kochi team, is close to Tharoor, as reported by DNA on Sunday. The two have been frequently seen together in New Delhi’s social circles.

During the signing of the franchise agreement on Saturday night in Bangalore, a Union minister had called up a top IPL official and asked him not to press for details of the woman. It was later revealed that she is linked to Shashi Tharoor. “I was told not to get into who owns Rendezvous, specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why?” wondered IPL chairman Lalit Modi on Twitter. The request has been minuted in the records of the meeting.   

At the meeting, the shareholders of the consortium told the IPL officials that Pushkar is based in New Delhi and her husband is associated with an automobile firm. IPL officials now wonder if the partners of the company had any knowledge of her association with the minister. Tharoor has been maintaining that his only link with Team Kochi is as mentor. He could not be reached for comment on this development. A list of questions was sent to him but there was no response.

Besides the minister’s link, the IPL is looking into why Rendezvous, one of the partners of the consortium, has been given free undilutable 25% equity for perpetuity.  “I am puzzled. Well, if others want to pay 100s of millions, who are we to say no? That’s between them,” Modi tweeted.

Another interesting bit of information about Team Kochi is that there is only person from the state, Vivek Venugopal, to have a stake — about one per cent — in the consortium.

Besides Pushkar, the other partners of Rendezvous who hold free equity are Kisan, Shailendra and Pushpa Gaikwad, Puja Gulathi, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad and Sundip Agarwal. Rendezvous, however, has purchased one per cent equity in the consortium which means it has 26% share in the team.

When asked about the issue, Modi said he will be submitting a report to the IPL governing council. On Saturday, he had told DNA that the new franchise brought disrepute to the IPL.

It is still not clear if any former India skipper is associated with the team. There have been reports that at least two former captains are part of the consortium but when asked, an IPL official said, “Who knows who is behind whom?”

When contacted, a spokesman for the consortium said he had no information or comments to offer. “We have given the IPL whatever information sought from us,” the spokesman said. Other partners of the consortium did not respond to calls and messages
Box: Team Kochi: The complete list of partners: Rendezvous (25% free), Rendezvous (1% purchased), Anchor (27%), Parinee (26%), Film Waves (combine 12%), Anand Shyam (8%) and Vivek Venugopal (1%).