New Delhi, April 16: Union minister and former Board president Sharad Pawar Thursday came out in support of Lalit Modi, the Indian Premier League (IPL) supremo, saying there was nothing wrong in making public the names of the Kochi franchise stakeholders.
“There is nothing wrong in disclosing the names of the stakeholders,” Pawar said.
Modi’s tweeted revelations have opened a can of worms with Sunanda Pushkar and Shashi Tharoor, the junior foreign minister, finding themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons. Tharoor is alleged to have a hand in Pushkar getting free equity in the Kochi franchise.
Not only that, questions are now being raised over the transparency of the T20 league itself and there are allegations of underworld and betting syndicates pumping in huge amounts to secure franchises.
“If the IPL commissioner or the BCCI president is seeking information about any bid, he has every right to do so, because unless and until he collects the correct information, he will not realise who the people behind it are,” Pawar told a television news channel.
Pawar also supported Tharoor, the ‘mentor’ to the consortium which bagged the Kochi franchise, saying the minister’s “basic interest” was to put cricket in the limelight in Kerala and provide opportunities to players from the state.
“My observation is that Tharoor’s basic interest was that Kochi should get an opportunity in the IPL. He was eager to show the people of the state that the IPL is also a part of Kerala and wanted to encourage new players from Kerala,” Pawar said.
The Union minister hoped that the IPL governing council meeting later this month would clear the “misunderstandings”.
“I am absolutely clear that when (BCCI president) Shashank Manohar holds this meeting, all misunderstandings will be cleared,” he said.
Pawar also said that Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had no role in the entire episode. “They (Kochi investors) met me once and there was a suggestion that the Kochi stadium would take a year or two to complete. So, in the meantime, if they play in Ahmedabad, that will be better.
“But I advised them that ‘you have taken the option of Kochi. Please do not shift the place’. Fortunately, that time Narendra Modi was in town. These people met him and, in my presence, Modi told the investors ‘don’t insist for Ahmedabad because you got this opportunity for Kochi,’” Pawar added.
Pawar said he did not believe the IPL supremo had offered the Kochi franchise $50 million to back out of their bid. He also questioned the seriousness of the underworld threats Tharoor claims to have received.
—-PTI