Modi, who seemed critical of Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor in his tweets, disclosed the ownership structure of the Rendezvous Sports World which coughed up $333.33 million (about Rs 1,533 crore) to bag the Kochi franchise.
According to Modi, the free equity holders include Kisan Shailender and Pushpa Gaikwad, Sunanda Pushkar, Puja Gulati, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad and Sundip Agarwal. Pushkar, whom media reports have said Tharoor proposes to marry, is trained as a beautician and runs a spa.
Modi wrote: “A lot of you asking shareholders and events surrounding the Kochi team. I am compiling a note shortly and will put an official release soon” and indicated there was pressure on him not to reveal the details of who all own Rendezvous.
“I was told not to get into who owns Rendezvous, specially Sunanda Pushkar. Why?” Modi wrote. Providing details, the IPL boss said: “Kochi shareholders are: Rendezvous 25 per cent free, Rendezvous 1 pc, Anchor 27 pv, Parinee 26 pc, Film Waves combine 12 pc, Anand Shyam 8 pc, Vivek Venugopal 1 pc,” Modi tweeted.
Till late on Mon
day, Tharoor, known for his Twitter comments, chose to remain silent. The minister had played an instrumental role in galvanising the Kochi consortium, insisting all along that he had no financial stake in it.
He had merely stated that he had given encouragement, offered blessings and expert advise to the bidders. “I am not even sure whether I know all of them, nor do I have any knowledge of the decision that how much they were going to bid. I know this Rendezvous Sports World and had met the Gaekwad brothers,” Tharoor said in a Tweet.
Latest reports said the Kochi team has threatened legal action against Modi and Rendezvous Sports accused him of breaching a confidentiality agreement by revealing the names of the stakeholders. The Kochi franchise reportedly wants Modi to disclose the stake-holding pattern in other franchises.
RSW sources claimed that Modi was interested in having Ahmedabad as one of the franchises for the subsequent IPL seasons and was therefore creating problems for Kochi.
