Trouble for agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, who is embroiled in the IPL bid controversy, appears to have further increased, as BCCI president Shashank Manohar on Saturday claimed that the IPL Governing Council did not know that Aniruddha Deshpande of the City Corporation entered the bid ring in his individual capacity for the
Pune IPL team. The Pune bid, which was ultimately won by the Sahara group, has snowballed into a major controversy involving Mr Pawar and his parliamentarian daughter Supriya Sule.
Meanwhile, claiming that it has accessed the City Corporation’s board resolution, CNN-IBN, a TV news channel, revealed that the company had authorised Mr Deshpande to bid for the Pune team. Quoting Mr Deshpande, the channel even claimed that the bid papers for Pune IPL team were purchased in the name of City Corporation. “According to City Corporation board resolution, the company had authorised Mr Deshpande to bid on behalf of the company,” the channel informed.
The new revelations has weakened Mr Pawar’s defence. He, on Friday, had claimed that no member of his family was “involved in any IPL team or in the bidding process or had taken interest in bidding”. He went on to say that Mr Deshpande had made the bid for the Pune team in his “personal capacity”.
Mr Pawar had also said that the company had no connection with the bid and it was clear from the resolution.