Shashi Tharoor resigned today as India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, failing
to make it to even his first anniversary. No, it wasn’t something he tweeted that was his undoing — it was something someone else tweeted.
Mr. Tharoor was on the receiving end of a Twitter attack last week from Lalit Kumar Modi, chairman and commissioner of the Indian Premier League. …
The seeds of the current feud were sown in March when two new IPL teams were put up for auction. One of the teams, which will be based in Kochi in Mr. Tharoor’s home state, was won by Rendezvous Sports World. The group, which includes figures from India’s real-estate and cinema sectors, agreed to pay $333 million.
Three weeks later, on April 11, Mr. Modi sent out this on Twitter: “Who are the shareholders of rendezvous. And why have they been given this 100’s of million dollar bonanza?”
He revealed the names of the group’s shareholders later that day. The list included Sunanda Pushkar, a woman frequently photographed at social events with Mr. Tharoor, who is in the middle of a divorce from his second wife. [Wall Street Journal]
The would-be third wife stood to gain greatly from the Kochi franchise — or so it appeared — which caused an uproar from opposition parties and an Internet slowdown as millions of young men entered the search term “Sunanda Pushkar pics.”
Mr. Tharoor has denied accusations that he stands to benefit financially from his links to Ms. Pushkar.
“It has been suggested that I have indirectly received personal benefits from this enterprise because the Rendezvous management team, who hold stakes in the venture, includes a close friend of mine,” said Mr. Tharoor in a statement that he tried to make in parliament Friday before he was shouted down by other parliamentarians. He gave it instead to journalists outside. [Wall Street Journal]
So what’s next for Tharoor? Will he marry Pushkar? Will he remain in parliament? Will he write more books? And will John Abraham play him when the movie about his life is made?
Congress is so corrupt–it is a national shame and a disgrace. If we are ever going to develop our country, we need to recover all the Congress money stashed away in Switzerland, London and Dubai.
Tehelka seems to suggest that there is more to this episode that what meets the eye and that the IPL is apparently a confluence of sex, $, cricket and some more $. http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=Ne240410the_indian.asp
Sordid politics, is IPL, but now that the flamboyant minister is out of a job, he might as well enjoy the last remnant piece of the pie – this MILF is worth all the trouble.
Shashi Tharoor is an attention-hog pretty-boy.
hmm yes, but the mythical non-corrupt indian party will of course solve all of india’s problems. cough.
will have to read more about this, but what confuses me is that Modi is the one who took the money from the Kochi people. Why didn’t he insist on asking for names before awarding the franchise to them, rather than tweeting about it later. Wouldn’t be surprised if there is a lot more to this story…
It would have been better if this crap had come out after the finals. This has been a good tournament so far, its a bloody shame that all this had to happen right before the knock out games. Through IPL I have learned about the awesome cricketing talent India possesses – (no, domestic 1st class cricket does not show case that talent) and the best part is that many of these athletes will be able to convert their talent and passion for cricket into a decent lively hood.
Tharoor was screwing around in every sense of the word and got what he pretty much deserved. Modi may be gone soon, but it is Modi’s arrogance that thwarted Aussie/England/NZ/SA in keeping the tournament in India and kept the IPL theme the way Indians would like it. People who do not like the IPL’s brand of cricket are welcome to not watch it.
Oh! to the Maoists who are ‘moaning’ about the the “confluence” of cricket, $ (and more $) , and sex – phhukk you !. Most of the cricket fans would not mind excess of any of these.
huh? lalit modi has had every franchise auctioned to his family and friends. this mess came up because lalit modi had wanted to oblige his good friend narendra modi with a franchise but the kochi bid came in the way. tharoor deserved to go – he used his influence to make money on the side, and that should be punished. but it looks like lalit modi will get away because far too many pols of all stripes are involved in his much much bigger scam and theft.
Looks like there are no shortage of investors for the teams. So why not expand the league to 12 teams and give the opportunity to bid for 2 more teams?
Lalit Modi was a gangsta when he was studying at Duke. More info here
Isn’t Sashi Tharoor a Nair aka a Sudra from Kerala?
Isn’t Sashi Tharoor a Nair aka a Sudra from Kerala?
why is that important in this context?
[quote] “huh? lalit modi has had every franchise auctioned to his family and friends. this mess came up because lalit modi had wanted to oblige his good friend narendra modi with a franchise but the kochi bid came in the way.” [quote]
Let the story develop further, we may find out out that Shah Rukh Khan and Lalit Modi are long lost brothers (just as you are implying). Great job of dragging Narendra Modi into this – now every ABD waging a long distance war on social justice in India will be able to opine on this story on “Cricket”. Moreover someone has already cast the caste angle to make things simple for the rest who are clueless about IPL, cricket or Indian in general. Only North India v/s South India angle needs to be added and we will have a grand thread.
Indians wimp out in international arena, just look at Indian government leadership, at least Lalit Modi was able to talk the talk and walk the walk. I am not a devotee of Lalit Modi and I certainly am not vouching for his character. I am just implying that had it been someone else he or she could not have handled the pressure that cricket authorities from other countries imposed on him. That said, Lalit Modi is not going to last, one can mess with the system only for so long, however once he is gone it will not be easy for anyone to keep the IPL juggernaut rolling.
Only if Bips plays Pushkar.
The politicians are making a bid to take control of the IPL, and hence the continuing attacks on Modi. I hope Modi manages to keep it in private hands, because having the government running the IPL would be a right disaster like everything else the government touches.
Tharoor- scapegoat for Sugar Barons who want their point-man to run the show at the BCCI/ IPL behemoth. The Board owes backtaxes and in its bid to soften Congress Income Tax probes will stoop and scalp Modi. Modi will fly to Durban and do a ‘Sulabh’ on his muse! Tada!
Re Post 12:
It is important because it preempts prema.
Statement that Sashi Tharoor would have made in the parliament. http://tharoor.in/press/statement-by-dr-shashi-tharoor-mp-to-the-lok-sabha-16-april-2010/ Either too naive to know what “benami” is and how it is practiced or too smart to think he could talk his way out of this.
Money from cricket should be used to promote other sports like hockey, football and basketball at the state level.
Melvin,
The last paragraph of your write-up made me smile! Sorry I didn’t praise you in my earlier post.
Nambear,
Thanks for posting the Tehelka article! It’s always about the money!
you have no clue whether i am an abd or dbd or what have you. if you don’t know the details of this story, i’d suggest you get informed instead of throwing around allegations.
are you naturally dumb, or did you get trained to be this good at it? srk is not the whole owner of the kolkata franchise. just as preity is not the whole owner of kxip (dabur ranjans are in laws of modi). get your facts right. lalit modi is involved with three franchises in shady ways – rr, kxip and kkr. srinivasan, secy of the board, has shady goings on with india cements ownership of csk. rumors about srikkanth are swirling too given his involvement in bcci as well as csk. why do you think anil ambani didn’t buy rr? collusion between mukesh and lalit modi led to anil being told a lower bid amount than necessary to win the franchise. why do you think lalit modi is this upset about kochi? because his buddies and cohorts in ahmedabad didnt win it, and he couldnt deliver a franchise to gujarat where he hopes he will get a safe landing since he has been kicked out of the rajasthan board. why do you think arun jaitley of the bjp is still sort of supporting lalit modi? there are machinations with the delhi board and delhi daredevils. of course, sharad pawar and praful patel are neck deep in this, which is why pawar is backing modi to the hilt.
if modi cuts loose, too many people will lose. i think the game will now be to sideline modi as the bcci is now trying and threaten him to keep quiet or else – the cong has been collecting dirt on him (of all kinds – embezzling, match fixing) for the past year but has not used it, and that is their card they are holding.
know your shit before mouthing off.
Well, money from Cricket in general adn IPL in particular is not even reaching Cricket Associations which nurture and promote talent. It will be a while before it reaches to other sports.
Nambear – I did not get the ‘sulabh’ reference 🙂
bottom line: too many powerful people from all parties are involved, so the boat can’t be rocked any more. lalit modi didnt think through his angry tweets and overestimated the protection pawar could provide him.
my guess: lalit modi will lose his power, will get to keep his money in exchange for keeping shut and not being thrown behind bars for a significant chunk of the next decade.
the rest of the merry band will just go on with their scam.
tharoor was too much of a babe in the woods, jumped on the ipl scam machine without knowing what he was getting into, and lost his power as a result. qn is whether he will get to keep the bribe he got through sunanda or whether they will extract that from him too. my guess is he will get to keep the money too in exchange for silence.
losers: you and me with taxpayer money beyond belief being poured into bcci and ipl and no accounting to be seen. welcome to the age of the new indian oligarchs!
also for those who are interested – look up the story of the singapore/mauritius shell company that owns some of the tv rights for ipl and how it gets back to lalit modi.
Calm down! I am not alleging anything. I admit that I don’t know my ‘shit’ as well as you know yours. I am not too keen to make an acquaintance either. But are you really shocked at rampant nepotism in India?
the nice thing about the web is that what you said is right there:
so, you said that i was misinformed/stupid and cynically bringing n. modi into the discussion. so, i am sorry – you more than just alleged things, and that was what led to the tone of my reply.
!=
sulabh, your defense of your unwarranted remarks is thin gruel (what then is the point of your modi remark if you weren’t alleging that it was a cynical introduction by me? and what was the point of the sarcasm about srk and lalit modi if not to claim that i was stupid or misinformed?).
but i am not interested in discussing the tone of your uninformed comments or my reaction to them any further. and i assume that is the case with other readers of this blog, so i will leave it here.
“Isn’t Sashi Tharoor a Nair aka a Sudra from Kerala?”
Although that is besides the point, from wiki Nair (Malayalam: നായരàµâ€, pronounced [naËjar], also known as Nayar and Malayala Kshatriya), is the name of a Hindu forward caste from the Indian state of Kerala.
I hate that guy’s pretentious upper class accent. Not that it matters.
Indians and money + babes. nuff said.
MILFs, Money laundering, Nepotism and plain old douchebagginess. This is better than the Sporanos!
*Sopranos. It is early in the morning where I am .
It is obvious that he is smitten.. love will make men do strange things.
wow. chiddu is ustadon ke ustad. looks like he has so much dirt on pawar that he is cutting even him down to size and making him do the dirty work of telling his protege lalit modi that it is game over. and now, i guess pawar’s support to cong will be assured for the duration of the govt. or the mysteriously missing bid papers of videocon will mysteriously reappear again with one ms. supriya sule listed among the bidders.
BTW, Wikipedia lists Tharoor’s caste as being “Scythian“.
Lalu wants IPL to be nationalized, Mulayam wants IPL to be banned and congress govt is after Lalit Modi.WHY? The only problem i see in the whole issue is Shashi taroor, who manipulated to get a free ”sweat equity” worth millions for his girl friend and he was rightly fired!! But going after Lalit Modi and destroying IPL with a vengeance just because your own man got caught is absurd and unacceptable in a democracy.If Modi has done some thing wronge..prove it.
I ask congress government one question?Can you present a white paper on how you receive and spend your election funds?We all know how political parties are run in India.
Congress government is trying to distroy a global brand called IPL for its dirty and corrupt politics.
Why in God’s name is a sports league an issue of national importance? Is there any reason other than potential for graft to have the government’s finger in this particular pie? I mean, health and education yes. Banking I can understand under certain conditions. Infrastructure, definitely. National defense, unquestionably so.
And then you have. . . cricket? Really?
Why in God’s name is a sports league an issue of national importance? Is there any reason other than potential for graft to have the government’s finger in this particular pie? I mean, health and education yes. Banking I can understand under certain conditions. Infrastructure, definitely. National defense, unquestionably so.
And then you have. . . cricket? Really?
I’m with you–thus the ever-growing diaspora, which I have recently joined.
I repeat the cliched sentence “Cricket is religion & Sachin is god”. All i remember in my growing up years was watching, playing, reading, arguing, heart broken(when match fixing scandal happened), even ending up fighting..There is so much passion that goes into this game & hence the importance (money, fame, power). I guess you must be an ABD!
Tharoor is an ancient royal family from Kerala. He probably got his faux Oxford accent from his debating days at St. Stephen’s rather than from being born in London. Despite criticism of his accent, he speaks better than most MP’s even if his sense of humor is misunderstood. He speaks Hindi and Malayalam fairly well too, and French. Most politicians and the public don’t identify with his elitist westernized upbringing but we need articulate educated politicians like him to represent India in the West.
I’m still not understanding how any of this is justification to have the government running a sports league.
Really, even the most tenuous of justifications would suffice, but I’m drawing a blank. If you’re going to argue that “People like it and get emotionally invested, therefore the government needs to have a finger in that pie” then. . . I really don’t know what the say.
One thing that I believe is that the IPL is anti-capitalistic, and IPL supports and strengthens serfdom of the Indian masses. We all know that Indian Premier League is a very lucrative business. However, only VIPs, actors, and other famous people are the only entities who may purchase these stakes in this lucrative industry, such as Shah Rukh Khan or Preity Zinta.
Why can’t the IPL and other sports teams here in the USA be owned by the public or be traded on a stock exchange? This is anti-capitalist, and this is a variation of pricing discrimination. I believe that this is pricing discrimination because to own a stake (even a very small amount of the company), I would have to pay $INFINITY, but someone like Sonia Gandhi would pay around $10M or so. Because the price of participation is different for myself and Sonia-ji, this is pricing discrimination, and it would only benefit the VIP class.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If this report is true, Modi was bucking tradition in disclosing the ownership structures for the franchises. No wonder, it has upset a lot of people.
BCCI didn’t want Modi to reveal IPL owners
Because man cannot live on bread alone.
Sport is of national importance for most countries. Pro sports rarely improve the heath of the population as a whole, yet countries spend billions on it. The sheer scale of the operation means that the govt is involved in various ways (security, regulation of commerce, infrastructure, etc) and regulation is often for the benefit for the people as a whole. The govt of India has in the past intervened to make sport better — the cleanup after the betting scandals in the past, ensuring that TV reaches a wide coverage. In India, especially, sports and govt have been tightly linked – the Govt, directly or Indirectly sustains most sport, and have used sport to further both their national and international agendas (a prominent example is the boycott of apartheid)
That said, in this case the politicians are just embarrassed by what happened with Tharoor and want some payback. And as you said, they also are using the as an excuse to get their grubby paws on the IPL’s wealth, which they have been salivating over for quite some time.
P.S. on Tharoor’s departure. Awwww, cho sad to see someone who epitomizes the best that the Indian center/left can offer bite the dust, isn’t it.
As for playing him, Sashi Tharoor actually is a role played a actor — think about it .. a superstar attitude, an internet pioneer, the British accent from years with a British wife and plying Shakespearean roles. He is so awesome, that a little makeup to look younger fooled everyone, when even the name itself should have given him away: Shashi ***oor.
kanna nee verum jujube. cong has played this scandal very well so far. sacrificed somebody relatively insignificant like tharoor for great gains – pawar and praful patel by the short hairs, and lalit modi kicked out with lots and lots of dirt on vasundhara raje waiting to embarrass the bjp.
Is Shashi Tharoor rich? I googled Lalit Modi and it said he comes from a fairly wealthy business family. So, even if he gets tossed out, he won’t be going hungry and it doesn’t look like it will hurt him financially.
Does Tharoor need money for his divorce? Does he have kids to support?
I don’t know why didn’t stay at the UN and try to become it’s secretary-general.
He had snowballs chance in hell at becoming the next UN GenSec. I laughed to myself when he went all smarmy during an interview saying he’s not corruptible because he spent his life in positions that were above all that conveniantly forgetting he was knee deep in the Oil for Food scam. UN corruption and lack of action gives India’s govt a run for its money.
In the end he accomplished jack except garner headlines which isn’t surprising considering he spent most of his life at the UN. The biggest joke is that he’s still a MP and gets to sit in Parliament with all the other vermin.
http://supporttharoor.org/