A senior Congress leader has told The Telegraph, Kolkata, that the NCP strongman Sharad Pawar has been given audio and video proof of IPL commissioner Lalit Modi trying to “torment” the IPL Kochi consortium.
Pawar, the report said, is believed to have been presented “incontrovertible and damning” evidence of Modi's unsavoury behind-the-scenes operations. Sources said these include details of shifty financial dealings and attempts to scare off franchise bidders he did not want in the IPL.
The Congress leadership has moved deftly to neutralise Sharad Pawar's formidable leverage in the cricketing oligarchy on its way to scalping Lalit Modi.
Following the uproar in Parliament, the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself is believed to have sought, and received, a detailed brief on the IPL gamut.
The issue needed attention at the top because it had not merely rocked Parliament but created sharp divisions between the UPA allies.
Key to the Congress's two-birds-with-one-stone manoeuvre were signals conveyed to Pawar that he was straying from his core area of politics and leaving “damaging footprints” in the volatile IPL minefield which has already claimed big-ticket victims, says The Telegraph report.
The Congress and the NCP have always shared an uneasy relationship, but Pawar's overt support to Modi — and possibly other business interests in the backdrop — nearly brought matters to a new flashpoint over the past week.
Allegations had surfaced that elements in the IPL had tried to browbeat deep-pocket franchise bidders into withdrawing to favour a particular group, which wanted an IPL team for Ahmedabad with Modi's undercover support.
It is not known whether these actors resorted to strong-arm tactics with Pawar's knowledge or consent, but it was conveyed to the NCP leader that the “aggrieved parties” could bring their weight to bear, and his alleged footprints on the murky circumstances before and after the recent auction “could return to haunt him” in the twilight of his career.
But neither the IPL nor Modi, say insiders, appeared worthy enough for Pawar to put his politics — and daughter Supriya Sule's future — at stake. Sule herself spoke with eloquent proof of that.
Flatly denying that her husband Sadanand Sule had any interests in the Adani bid, Supriya said: “I will not respond to insinuations against me, my husband or Prafulbhai (Patel). Present facts and I am ready to fight. The point is we are not interested in the politics of cricket, we are interested in the politics of development.”
Wise to weigh the adverse implications of his blessings to the Modi group, Pawar grudgingly opted to back off and protect his political fortunes instead.
Pawar was in a huddle with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P. Chidambaram on Tuesday afternoon at Parliament House, and Congress sources said the burgeoning IPL mess was on the menu.
Finance ministry sources, though, denied cricket had come up at the meeting and said it had been called to discuss strategies to counter the BJP's planned assault on price rise through a rally in Delhi tomorrow.
Congress sources, however, maintained that party leaders had told Pawar that leads available with government agencies against Modi would be “sincerely acted upon”, making his continuance as IPL chief untenable.
Confronted, Pawar expressed his willingness to rid the IPL of Modi and said he would work out a formula to sideline him although that would not be easy.
But he is also said to be opposed to the fishing operation by the income-tax department and other intelligence and enforcement agencies into IPL affairs, arguing that such an inquiry would scare off investors and eventually kill the enterprise.
