By IANS,
New Delhi : Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor’s future in the government remained uncertain Sunday amid unending demands for his resignation even as his friend Sunanda Pushkar gave up her controversial stake in the IPL Kochi franchise.
Tharoor, at the centre of a row regarding the Indian Premier League Kochi franchise business in which Pushkar got sweat equity worth Rs.70 crore, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh earlier in the day to explain his side of the story.
Tharoor did not speak to reporters after the 50-minute meeting. There was no word from the Prime Minister’s Office on what was discussed.
But even as the Congress core group, including the prime minister and party chief Sonia Gandhi, prepared to discuss what has turned out to be an explosive crisis, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) charged the beleaguered Tharoor with corruption.
The BJP argued that Pushkar’s action Sunday was an admission of guilt.
“The surrounding suspicious circumstances outline that he (Tharoor) abused his authority for undue enrichment for his friend (Pushkar),” BJP leader and spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
Prasad alleged that Pushkar was a front for Tharoor in the IPL deal. “He (Tharoor) is the beneficiary, and that is why in haste all these laws were violated and sweat equity was issued (to her).”
IPL commissioner Lalit Modi ignited the controversy a week ago when he revealed the ownership pattern of Kochi IPL, stating that Pushkar, who is based in Dubai, owned free equity in Rendezvous Sports World, a member of the consortium that won the Kochi franchise.
Modi accused Tharoor of asking him not to reveal the ownership details — a charge denied by the minister.
Pushkar’s lawyer Ashish Mehta announced Sunday — hours after a television channel claimed that she got the equity in violation of Company Law — that she was giving up the stake to Rendezvous Sports World.
“I had been looking forward to contributing over the next 10 years to building the team’s brand… However I can no longer imagine being able to find the enthusiasm required to associate myself with any IPL activity in the foreseeable future,” Pushkar said in a letter to Rendezvous.
In the letter read out by her lawyer, Pushar said she was “deeply distressed at the violent, malicious reporting” surrounding her role in Rendezvous.
Mehta insisted that her decision was not related to Tharoor. “She herself is very hurt as a woman, as a professional. It has got nothing to do with Tharoor.”
Pushkar, who is originally from Kashmir, alleged she was being targeted because she was a woman.
“As a woman professional, I am shocked to find how easily certain parties with vested interests questioned my credentials mainly because I am a woman.”
But the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) was not impressed.
Its leader Nilotpal Basu said the Left parties wanted Tharoor to quit. Pushkar’s surrender of her stake doesn’t help, Basu said. “If Pushkar had done no wrong, as she has claimed, why should she give up her stake?”
Communist Party of India’s D. Raja said in similar vein: “If there was nothing murky, why did Sunanda (Pushkar) surrender?”