Tharoor asks PM to clear his name

NEW DELHI - Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said that he has asked the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, to have the IPL cash row charges against him thoroughly investigated to ensure that his name is cleared.

In an address to Parliament, Tharoor said: “I have asked the Prime Minister to conduct a thorough investigation into the charges and want to clear my name that has been ‘besmirched’.

He said he had committed nothing improper or illegal, but had resigned from the cabinet in the strongest moral traditions’ of the party as he did not want to be an embarrassment to it.

He further said that he was deeply wounded by the fanciful and malicious charges levelled against him

“I am new to Indian politics…but I have a long record of public service untainted by allegations of financial irregularity,” Tharoor said.

Speaking for a short while in his native tongue Malyalam, Tharoor drew on the emotional appeal of his Thiruvananthapuram constituency and received some support from Kerala MPs.

Tharoor resigned on Sunday night after the Congress Core Committee asked him to do so.

The Income Tax (I-T) department has given a clean chit to Tharoor, saying he did not benefit from the Kochi -IPL deal.

The ministry said the I-T department is probing IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi’s offshore money and trying to find out if stakeholders are fronts for Modi.

Tharoor is reportedly in trouble after Modi tweeted to reveal that Sunanda Pushkar, a close friend of Tharoor, had been gifted sweat equity worth Rs.70 crores in the new Kochi team, which was sold for Rs.1530 crores last month.

Modi in his email to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) chief Shashank Manohar had stated it was Tharoor who called him and instructed him not to reveal the identities of the stakeholders of the Kochi IPL franchisee.

Tharoor, however, has denied this.

Tharoor said he had “enough” of the controversy and denied securing any monetary interest in the Kochi IPL team. (ANI)