 Lalit Modi has strongly defended his actions about revealing the names of the
stakeholders of the Kochi IPL team on the social networking website, Twitter.
Modi had earlier tweeted about the people who owned the franchise and who were
the hidden stakeholders who held the free stake.
There were also other reports from the Indians media, which said that the Indian
Congress minister, Shashi Tharoor had received death threats over his
SMS. There were other reports which said that the income Tax department had
begun a probe into where the money to invest in the team had come from and who
were behind the bid. Tharoor went on to add that Modi did not want the Kochi
franchise to go ahead with the bid and had tried his best to derail the bid.
Modi then explained he had had no option but to disclose the identities of
the stakeholders, because even those who had presented the bid did not know
all the stakeholders. Refuting the allegations from Tharoor about the other
sides, he added that everyone knew who the other owners were and it was public
knowledge.
However, at a press conference today, after being handed over a ban to talk
about the same to the media, Lalit Modi said, "It is not a big issue
but an issue nevertheless. We will call a governing council meeting to present
my facts." He added that the IPL was at an important stage and he would
like to concentrate on it. Modi said that it was the IPL needed to know where
the money was coming from.
The other issue related to it was the existence of free stake awarded to an
unknown individual that had caused much talk. It was later revealed that the
free stake belonged to Sunanda Pushkar, a lady close to Shashi Tharoor.
However, she defended her stake by saying that she was not a proxy for Tharoor,
but was invited by Rendezvous group in 2009. "They invited me to associate
myself with them as a consultant in their various sporting activities and particularly
in their potential bid to acquire the franchise of an IPL team." She added
that in lieu of a salary, she had been offered this stake in the side.
Modi later said that there will be an IPL awards night on the 23rd April which
will be hosted by Shah rukh Khan and Karan Johar.
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