Tharoor to clarify in Parliament today

NEW DELHI - Former Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor is likely to make a statement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday over the IPL controversy.

The decision was taken on Monday after Tharoor briefly visited Parliament house and met party leaders including senior ministers Pranab Mukherjee, AK Antony and P Chidambaram.

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, and said 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)