Former IPL Commissioner and businessman Lalit Modi has shed light on some shocking details surrounding the late wife of Congress leader Shashi Tharoor — Sunanda Pushkar and her shady IPL connections. Lalit Modi shared the details during a podcast show with Raj Shamani, exposing how the Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his late wife Sunanda Pushkar, manipulated the system for their personal gain.
During the interaction, Modi alleged that he was “forcibly made to sign documents” granting Sunanda Pushkar, a 25% ownership stake worth millions in the Kochi IPL team without any financial contribution on her part. He further claimed that the Congress-led UPA government, including “10 Janpath” (a reference to the Gandhi family), fostered an environment of unchecked corruption during its tenure.
Moreover, as per Lalit Modi, she was set to receive a lucrative 15 percent cut of the team’s revenue. “I looked at the list of 12 shareholders, and everything seemed fine until I saw the name Sunanda Pushkar. She had zero investment in the consortium, but was handed 25 percent ownership of the team, plus 15% of every dollar coming in. This didn’t add up,” Modi said. His suspicions were further fueled as the transaction seemed completely unorthodox.
BIG allegations by Former IPL boss Lalit Modi against Congress MP Shashi Throoor & Party:
I was forcibly made to sign on documents giving 25% ownership title worth millions to Sunanda Pushkar with 0 contribution, by Shashi and 10 Janpath (Gandhi family)pic.twitter.com/PL5okKOEOl
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) November 27, 2024
When Lalit refused this criminal and corrupt arrangement, Shashi Tharoor allegedly threatened him over a phone call saying that the Enforcement Directorate would pay him a visit if he didn’t comply – even a reference to 10 Janpath was made to convey the seriousness of the threat.
Modi also explained how he eventually came to know about the political connections behind the deal and why he suspected Sunanda Pushkar was party to the deal, “I said that if you’re forcing me to sign it, then I will sign it under force and I will minute it on the agreement itself, that under duress and under force and as directed by the president of BCCI, I’m signing this agreement and not on my own accord and I signed the agreement. I’m done, water under the bridge as far as I’m concerned, and we go to bed. I get up in the morning, and every newspaper front page Sunanda Pushkar getting married to Shashi Tharoor. I had no idea, zero idea that was the case.”
“Now all the pieces start to fall in place and I said this is not going to happen under my watch, it ain’t going to happen and I’m on the flame, I just tweeted taking off, who is the hell is this Sunanda Pushkar, rags to riches, billionairess, media expert, now the owner of Kochi Team, 25%, a bonanza – day one with one signature it’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars because the team went for hundreds of millions of dollars. She owns a free $300 million asset, right there,” he added.
Furthermore, Lalit Modi also made serious accusations against former BCCI president N Srinivasan charging him with “fixing umpires”. According to Lalit Modi, Srinivasan not only fixed auctions during the IPL for his team Chennai Super Kings, but also put Chennai umpires during CSK matches.
While interacting with Raj Shamani, Lalit Modi said, “He (N Srinivasan) didn’t like IPL; he didn’t think IPL will work but when it started to work everybody got the bandwagon. He was member and secretary of the board also so he was the biggest adversary of mine. I went up against him, so he did many things, umpire fixing, he said, ‘I did it’”.
He added, “I accused him for it. He would change the umpire and I didn’t think two things about it. But then I realized he is putting Chennai umpire in Chennai games, it’s an issue for me. That’s called fixing so when I tried to expose those, he went totally against me.”
