Tharoor-Modi row: What is it all about?

Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has again got tongues wagging for his alleged meddling in the Indian Premier League franchise business.

IPL-gate: What is it?
Shashi Tharoor landed himself in a fresh controversy when IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi alleged that Tharoor told him not to reveal the ownership pattern of the IPL Kochi franchise.
The dispute erupted after Lalit Modi said the winning consortium allotted stakes worth about $15 million for free to a woman Indian media identified as Tharoor's girlfriend Sunanda Pushkar.
Modi said Tharoor had called him to ask that the shareholding details of the consortium not be revealed. Tharoor denies this and has not commented on the nature of his ties to Pushkar.
Lalit Modi alleged that Tharoor did not want to reveal the stake of Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend, in Rendezvous Sports World which is part of consortium that won the IPL Kochi franchise.
But, Modi has not only publicly disclosed the names of some of the owners of the consortium that bought the franchisee for $333 million but has also alleged that he was told by Tharoor not to ask who these shareholders were.
This startling claim assumes significance since at the heart of the controversy is the reported 19% stake owned by Sunanda Pushkar in the 25% free equity owned by Rendezvous Sports World Pvt Ltd, the company that led the consortium that finally won the team. The value of Pushkar's stake is $15.82 million (about Rs 70 crore).
Tharoor says:
Embattled Shashi Tharoor, India's minister of state for external affairs, said he would not oblige his critics by resigning as he had done no wrong in the billowing controversy over the Kochi IPL franchise.
'If I had done anything wrong, I would have resigned. To resign because people have chosen to deliberately misrepresent you or misperceive you means that you are giving more importance to other people's perception than to your own character and your own integrity. I am not going to resign,' Tharoor.
Slamming Modi, Tharoor said: 'The unethical efforts that have been made by Modi and others to thwart the Kerala franchise which had been won fair and square in a transparent bidding process are disgraceful.
'I deny Lalit Modi's allegation that I called him during his meeting with investors in the Kochi consortium in Bangalore Saturday night in order to press him not to question the composition of the consortium,' the minister said in a statement.
Lalit Modi says:
Modi, in an email sent to Shashank Manohar, president, Board of Control for Cricket in India and the members of the governing council of the board, alleged that the Kochi franchisee has "a lot to hide and as such have lied about who is the actual owner of the shares (in the consortium that bought the team)."
Modi also said in his email that "when I questioned who the shareholders were...they had no answer. In fact, they said we will revert back. Within minutes of me asking the same...I got a call from Shashi Tharoor asking me not to ask about who these shareholders are."
Modi in his tweets claimed he was asked not to get into who owns the Rendezvous.
'I was told by him (Tharoor) not to get into who owns rendezvous. Specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why? The same has been minuted in my records,' he tweeted.
Sunanda Pushkar says:
In a hard-hitting statement Pushkar accused the media of ignoring her professional background and international business experience and focussing 'obsessively on my personal life as if a woman cannot be capable of professional or financial success.
'My own business interests and assets are substantial, and efforts to besmirch Tharoor by presenting me as a proxy for him are personally insulting for me as a woman and as a friend.
'I have built up a respectable and successful career while coping with widowhood and raising a child as a single mother. Yet I have been reduced to a caricature in the media, portrayed with inaccuracies and falsehoods,' she said.
Kochi franchise says:
In the eye of storm over its ownership pattern, Indian Premier League's Kochi franchise alleged that IPL commissioner Lalit Modi is targeting the new team under pressure from Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
"We were told that we won't be allowed to work. The Adani group and Narendra Modi had a stake in the Ahmedabad IPL bid.
"Since Modi has disclosed all the stakeholders of the Kochi team, he should also furnish details of other franchises. I ask the government to reveal the ownership details of other IPL teams under the corporate law.
Government should investigate. We are clean and we have nothing to hide," the franchise's spokesperson Satyajit Gaekwad asserted Modi has alleged that Kochi are not coming out clean on their stakeholders.
Opposition guns for Tharoor
The Shashi Tharoor-Lalit Modi row over ownership of Kochi IPL team escalated assuming political proportions with the BJP demanding sacking of Minister of State for External Affairs for alleged corruption and Congress calling it "absurd".
The Left parties joined the campaign against Tharoor and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) demanded he must step down till his name 'is cleared of any unethical or irregular behaviour.'
The CPI went a step further and asked Manmohan Singh to sack Tharoor for misusing his official position.
Samajwadi Party asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to remove Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor from Union cabinet over the Kochi IPL team controversy. (Text courtesy: Agencies)