Shashi Tharoor’s ‘friendly’ stake in Team Kochi may prove costly
Did minister inform Congress leadership fully about his involvement through Sunanda Pushkar?
Minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor’s flirtation with the Kochi franchise of the Indian Premier League (IPL) can turn out to be the biggest mess of his political career.
Records now prove that 5% free equity was given to Sunanda Pushkar, Tharoor’s woman friend, in the franchise — the figure has been confirmed by IPL sources. DNA had on Monday mentioned Pushkar’s stake in the new team.
Pushkar, who hails from an Indian family with business interests in Dubai, has been seeing Tharoor and has been introduced to political colleagues and social friends as the minister’s future wife. The transfer of equity, valued at nearly Rs100 crore, to a person so close to the minister has raised eyebrows.
Tharoor, all along, was describing himself as a “mentor” of the Kochi franchise without any direct stake whatsoever. More damagingly, he is also being accused of not giving the top leadership of the Congress the full picture on his involvement.
The drama began on March 21, when the Rendezvous consortium (Kochi) and Sahara (Pune) won the bids for the ninth and 10th franchises of the IPL. They were unexpected winners as two other large business groups were hoping to win the rights for Pune and Ahmedabad. Both these losing bids were backed by high-profile politicians from Maharashtra.
Immediately afterwards, a campaign was mounted to pressure the Kochi consortium into withdrawing or selling its controlling stake. The political sources mentioned above spoke to individual members of the consortium.
In turn, the promoters of the Kochi franchise went to Tharoor for political help. It is understood that Tharoor met one of the highest ranked leaders of the ruling party to lobby on their behalf. He told the high command that he was speaking as a Kerala MP, cited regional sentiments and a possible adverse impact in the state assembly elections in 2011 in case the Kochi bid was de-recognised or the consortium was moved out.
He also apparently assured the party leadership that he had no personal holding — but this could not be independently confirmed.
The UPA leadership came to his rescue and those controlling the levers in IPL backed down.
The matter would have rested there had the IPL authorities not asked the Kochi franchise to disclose the complete list of its shareholders. This revealed the identity of Sunanda Pushkar and brought into question Tharoor’s financial interest in the Kerala IPL team. Incidentally, in Dubai, Pushkar was employed by Tecom Investments, the real estate company behind Kochi’s controversial ‘Smart City’ project.
The issue of Tharoor having secured a prize for his help to the Kochi franchise has been doing the rounds for a few days. On Sunday, April 11, Lalit Modi, IPL commissioner, was asked a direct question on Twitter: “Does S[h]ashi Tharoor owns [sic] something [in the Kochi franchise]?
His answer was suggestive: “A big? [question mark]! I was told by him not to get into who owns Rendezvous. Specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why? The same has been minuted in my records.”
Tharoor has been in other controversies in his year as a minister but never one in which his integrity has been put under the scanner.
It was difficult to get through to the minister and a questionnaire sent to him on Sunday remained unanswered. A close aide, however, refuted all charges and said that the Kochi team had nothing to do with Tharoor.
The Congress is expected to ask him for clarifications. It was primarily due to this reason that the party remained tight-lipped on Monday during the official press briefings.