Sunanda's heart now beats for Kerala

Pushkar, born into a Kashmiri Pandit family and now based in Dubai, on Sunday conveyed her good wishes to cricket and cricketers of Kerala. And the 48-year-old woman sought to set the record straight. Her ‘friendship’ with Minister of State for External Affairs and Thiruvananthapuram MP is not her only link with Kerala. She also has a 13-year-old son from her late second husband, Malayali businessman Sujith Menon.

“As a mother of a half-Malayali son I wish Kerala cricket well and I hope Kochi team succeeds handsomely in the IPL-4 and in the years to come,” she said in a statement that her lawyer Ashish Mehta read out to media-persons here.

He said Pushkar’s decision to surrender her sweat equity in Rendezvous Sports World had nothing to do with Tharoor, who had come under scanner for his role in the Kochi IPL franchise.

Pushkar had first tied the knot with Delhi-based hotelier-turned-pop-singer Sanjay Raina in 1980s, but the marriage broke up soon. She then married Menon, a Dubai-based Keralite, and shifted to the United Arab Emirate with her husband. The couple had a son. But Menon suffered a huge financial loss after organising a show-biz event in Dubai and returned to Kerala alone. He later died in an accident in Delhi.

Long-term plans
Pushkar, who quit her job in a property investment company in Dubai on March 13 last, also revealed that she had great long-term plans about the Kochi IPL team and had been looking forward to contributing over the next 10 years to building the team’s brand, organising events for it and marketing the team in India and the Gulf in particular.

“Given the deeply unpleasant publicity surrounding my involvement, however, I can no longer imagine being able to find the enthusiasm required to associate myself with any IPL activity in foreseeable future,” she stated and added that she, as a woman professional, was shocked to find “how easily certain parties with vested interests” questioning her credentials mainly because she was a woman.

Deccan Herald had on April 15 last reported that Pushkar had quit her job as a leasing and property investment specialist in Dubai-based Tecom Investments, a member of Dubai Holding, just a week before the auction in Chennai, where Rendezvous Sports World bid $ 333.3 million to own the Kochi IPL team.

Pushkar also said that she was a professional with 20 years of well-earned successful experience and that she was deeply distressed over the wild and malicious reporting in media over her role in Rendezvous Sports World.