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Lalit Modi pleads, ‘Give me 5 days’ to BCCI

If Modi skips the April 26 meeting, the governing council is expected to adopt a resolution to oust him from the post of IPL commissioner and chairman.

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The countdown has begun for the fall of Lalit Modi. The position of the commissioner of the Indian Premier League (IPL) — a $4 billion sports brand that has now been blamed for facilitating everything from match-fixing to bribery and money laundering — has become untenable as his enemies in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the political establishment gained the upper hand on Friday.

In a subdued acknowledgement of his no-win position, Modi abandoned plans to move court to claim that only he had the powers to call a meeting of the IPL governing council. Instead, in a letter to the BCCI, he pleaded for time to offer explanations. “I have worked for you for five years... Give me just five days to prepare answers to all the questions,” Modi wrote to the BCCI.

But his detractors have sensed victory. Even as the opposition in Parliament bayed for blood and called for a joint parliamentary probe into the IPL, the BCCI’s top brass boycotted Modi’s IPL awards function in Mumbai on Friday, showing that he is isolated. If Modi’s tweeting led to Shashi Tharoor’s resignation last Sunday, the coming Sunday will see Modi humbled.

Modi met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on Thursday in a last-ditch attempt to rescue himself, but Pawar and the NCP are deeply compromised over their own IPL links and look unlikely to save him. In fact, Modi has been told in clear terms that under the BCCI constitution, president Shashank Manohar has the authority to suspend any office-bearer, including the IPL commissioner.

A charge sheet has to be handed over to the person whenever a president uses this power. It is learnt that Arun Jaitley, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has already helped Manohar draft the charge sheet. The suspension order along with the charge sheet will be handed over to Lalit Modi on April 25, the moment the IPL finals end. 

The IPL governing council is scheduled to meet on April 26 morning, but this could be a mere formality and may not even take place if Modi is shown the door or resigns before the meeting. All the political bigwigs, including Jaitley, Rajiv Shukla, and Farooq Abdullah, who are members of the IPL governing council, have to return to Delhi to attend Parliament on Monday.

It is still not clear whether Modi will agree to submit his resignation. His dwindling allies say a compromise is being worked out whereby he will resign as IPL chief, but will not be shown the indignity of being turfed out as vice-president of the BCCI. He will be allowed to make his exit from the BCCI around September, when his term ends.

Punjab Cricket Board chairman IS Bindra, one of Modi’s few backers, called on Jaitley on Thursday night to plead that Modi be given an “honorable exit”. Even Congress MP Rajiv Shukla is not averse to the proposal. But the latter appealed to Modi saying, “Wisdom should prevail upon him.”

The whiphand is held by the three-member disciplinary action committee of the BCCI comprising president Shashank Manohar, Arun Jaitley and Chirayu Amin, a top businessman. All three hate Modi.

It was Manohar who called Modi’s bluff in March by firmly telling him that bids for two new IPL franchisees should be re-tendered.

When Modi did not answer his phone call and decided to go ahead with the two bids of Videocon and Adani for Pune and Ahmedabad, a cool Manohar simply told Modi that he would lodge an FIR with the police for bungling the bid.

Manohar had received a letter from Sahara owner Subroto Roy about his intention to bid for Pune and told him how things had become difficult.

The rebids took the game away from Modi, and saw the entry of Kochi and Sahara (for Pune).

The humbling of Modi serves the Congress well. Both Modi and Manohar are Sharad Pawar protégés, and this is the first time Pawar has been shown up as backing the wrong horse. His own NCP is also busy fending off queries from the taxman and the enforcement directorate.
 

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