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New Delhi: If a besieged Lalit Modi had any hopes of being rescued by Sharad Pawar, they were rudely shattered on Tuesday. Caught in a pincer, between a Congress intent on retrieving political ground, and a cricket establishment in revenge mode, the canny NCP supremo sought to cut his losses by abandoning his old ally.
A defiant Modi, however, vowed to battle on till the bitter end. He ignored Pawar's summons, flatly refused to quit as IPL commissioner and chairman, and said he would answer all allegations at the IPL governing council meeting on April 26. His camp hinted that he might blow the whistle on various activities that he had conducted on behalf of BCCI honchos.
By the end of the day, Pawar seemed to be caught between a rock and a hard place, with growing speculation that more revelations were set to emerge and the matter had now gone well beyond just Modi.
Pawar is learnt to have conveyed his "quit" advice to the IPL showman soon after his eventful meetings with finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and home minister P Chidambaram, and later with BCCI chief Shashank Manohar on Tuesday.
Sources say Mukherjee is learnt to have apprised Pawar of the Congress leadership's view that he should not stick with Modi in view of irregularities in IPL's affairs being thrown up by an income tax probe. The FM especially mentioned, according to sources, the issue of "loss" of files related to bids by Videocon and Adani groups for IPL teams (reported by TOI exclusively yesterday).
There were also reports that the government, which had kept Modi under surveillance, had intercepts of his conversations with a whole lot of people - including three ministers - and this was conveyed to Pawar. (Times Now reported there were tapes of Modi's conversations with senior politicians on April 15, 16 and 17 regarding the missing files).
The meeting with Manohar further underlined for Pawar the cost of continued solidarity with Lalit Modi. The BCCI chief minced few words as he told the NCP boss that the overwhelming majority of the governing council of IPL was for Modi's ouster and they were determined to do so, with or without Pawar's backing.
The face-saving formula that was apparently devised was that if Modi voluntarily stepped down at IPL, he would be allowed to stay on as BCCI vice- president till his tenure ends in September 2010. Till then, he would also be allowed to continue as chairman of BCCI's tournament and fixtures sub-committee. However, if he stayed put, he would be forced out of the BCCI too.
