Tharoor resigns on IPL controversy, PM accepts resignation

Shashi Tharoor on Sunday night resigned from the Union ministry after his claims of "arm's length mentoring" of Kochi IPL group did not cut ice with the Congress leadership.

The former UN diplomat's fall from grace also paves the way for the government to escalate the ongoing tax probe into the Lalit Modi-led IPL.


Tharoor indicated his desire to quit when he met PM Manmohan Singh on Sunday afternoon to clarify his position. The offer was accepted by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and the PM, and Tharoor was summoned to the PM's residence late at night.

After the meeting, he left without offering any comment, and his resignation was forwarded to — and accepted by — the President.

Political observers were quick to note that both meetings with the PM were long-drawn affairs, lasting over 30 minutes each. This contrasted with the few minutes that Tharoor got with Sonia Gandhi after waiting for an audience for almost five days.

The PM's call to Tharoor to put in his papers followed a two-hour meeting of the Congress's core committee and, more crucially, a one-on-one between the PM and Sonia Gandhi.

TOI was the first to report that a government inquiry had found that Tharoor may not have been a bystander during the negotiations over Sunanda Pushkar's "sweat equity" in Rendezvous Sports World, which stunned observers by coming out of nowhere to bag the Kochi franchise.

Shashi Tharoor's fate was sealed on Sunday at the core committee meeting, when finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and defence minister A K Antony, the two-member probe team on Tharoor's conduct, submitted a damning report.

Contrary to the junior minister's claim of "arm's-length mentoring" of Kochi group, the findings said he actively negotiated the "sweat equity" for Pushkar. He had, in fact, asked for 10% for Pushkar while the deal was finally settled at 5%.

This revelation was crucial in reaching the decision that Tharoor had to go.

The action against Tharoor also sets the stage for a vigorous scrutiny of the IPL led by Lalit Modi, who started the controversy by revealing the shareholders in Rendezvous Sports World which won the bid for Kochi.

The I-T department has already set the ball rolling and the coming days may see a full-blown probe into the functioning of the Rs 15,000 crore T-20 behemoth.

Ironically, a last-ditch effort to salvage the situation also fell through. Sunanda Pushkar, early in the evening and well after Tharoor had briefed the PM about his side of the story, announced that she was surrendering the contentious "sweat equity".

A tough-talking leadership felt it did not lessen the reasons why Tharoor should go. Moreover, Pushkar cannot surrender the "undilutable in perpetuity" shares to Rendezvous management with a mere announcement.