More than two months after Shashi Tharoor quit the Cabinet following the Kochi IPL controversy over the participation of his then friend, Sunanda Pushkar (now his wife Sunanda P Tharoor),her name surfaced at a meeting of the Kochi IPL consortium. On July 7,Satyajit Gaikwad,CEO of Rendezvous Sports World,which has a stake in the Kochi IPL consortium,said that he would mortgage his house and,if required, Sunanda Tharoors flat to raise money towards buying 12.5% equity in the consortium. This is recorded in the minutes of the meeting submitted to the BCCI and made available to The Indian Express. RSW currently has 25% shares for consideration other than cash. In other words,sweat equity for which it did not pay any money. Gaikwad claims that he has already given a cheque of Rs 7.87 crore,which is the value of that (12.5%) stake, and that this has been accepted by the consortium. On April 19,the same day that Tharoor resigned,Sunanda had announced that she had surrendered her shares (she had 190 of the 1000 sweat shares). In an e-mail response to questions from The Indian Express,Sunanda Tharoor wrote: People might say what they like in the heat of a discussion but there is no conceivable way anyone can mortgage any of my apartments.My involvement with Rendezvous and the consortium members since I surrendered my shares has been to advise them to come together. I have no financial stake or interest in the team whatsoever. The current conflict in the Kochi consortium is over the sweat equity held by the Gaikwads. While the investors,including Parinee and Anchor groups,want the Gaikwads to further reduce their sweat equity,the Gaikwads have dug their heels in. The BCCI has given the consortium 30 days to resolve their differences. Asked about his reference to mortgaging Sunanda Tharoors apartment,Gaikwad said that a document titled private circulation and draft meant for internal matters,was signed and circulated within the members of the consortium and was kept in the custody of the consortium lawyer Anand Desai. This letter,dated April 25,was later sent to BCCI without our knowledge, he said. Sunanda has,on paper,resigned, said Gaikwad,and she now has no stake and nothing to do with the consortium. But her statutory obligation which she has made still remains and does not cease. In fact,we have written to the BCCI to legalise the permission to transfer the stake from Sunanda Pushkar to Pushpa Gaikwad (mother). The board is yet to reply and grant us permission. But it should happen consequently. The Anchor Group owns 27 per cent in the unincorporated Rendezvous Sports Pvt Ltd,the company that won the franchise. The other investors are: Parinee Developers (26 per cent),Film Waves Combine (12 per cent),Anand Shyam (8 per cent),Vivek Venugopal (1 per cent) and Rendezvous (1 per cent). It was at the July 7 meeting that the group decided to approach Sunil Gavaskar with a six-year contract as Executive Vice Chairman at an annual package of $400,000 plus 50 per cent of the prize money. They also discussed a seven-year contract offer to Anil Kumble and possible offers to Venkatesh Prasad,Kepler Wessels and Mathew Mott.
