Team Kochi, the latest entrant to Indian Premier League, was put together by Shailendra Gaikwad of Rendezvous Sports World — at least that’s what Gaikwad says. RSW’s bid, of $ 333.33 million (about Rs 1,476 crore) for 10 years, came about with the help of big-time Gujarati investors with deep pockets. And all seemed fine till IPL commissioner Lalit Modi tweeted about Team Kochi’s ownership details last weekend, and mentioned the Dubai-based Sunanda Pushkar in it. Pushkar, who it was subsequently said had been given sweat equity of nearly 20 percent stake from its share of 25 percent by Rendezvous (which amounts to 5 percent, but this figure has been contested by Gaikwad), is a close friend of Shashi Tharoor, a junior foreign minister who admitted to having midwifed the team. Modi’s unspoken accusation was that Tharoor’s close friend Pushkar was a proxy for the minister. Since then allegations and counter-allegations have flown thick and fast between Modi and Tharoor. Things got murkier when RSW started speaking through its spokesman and Congressman Satyajit Gaikwad, who had lost the 2009 Lok Sabha election from Baroda in Gujarat with the biggest margin in the state. On Thursday, Gaikwad alleged that Modi was gunning… Read full this story
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Tharoor came in after we won IPL Kochi bid, not before: Gaikwad have 291 words, post on www.rediff.com at April 16, 2010. This is cached page on CHUTEU. If you want remove this page, please contact us.