Amar Singh hopes Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel would resign on moral grounds

THANE/PUNE - Former Samajwadi Party leader and Member of Parliament Amar Singh has expressed hope that the Union Ministers, if involved in the Indian Premier League controversy, would resign on moral grounds.

Speaking during a function on Saturday in Maharashtra’s Thane district Amar Singh said: “They (Congress party) have set a good example by forcing Shashi Tharoor to resign without any hesitation as soon as there were any doubts or controversy. I am confident that if Sharad Pawar (Union Agricultural Minister) and Praful Patel (Union Civil Aviation Minister) are involved in this controversy, they will also resign on moral grounds,” said Singh.

Meanwhile, in Pune, lending his support to Lalit Modi, the controversial Commissioner of the IPL League, Sahara India Parivar group chairman Subrata Roy said that the present success of the IPL was largely due to Modi’s efforts.

“Lalit Modi has played an important role in the success of IPL. I would like to say that according to the law of the land whatever is appropriate should be done. But you can not negate the fact that his (Modi’s) contribution in the success of IPL is immense,” he said.

Sahara Pune Warriors, the new team in the Indian Premier League (IPL) owned by the Sahara India Parivar group was unveiled here by Sahara India chairman, Subroto Roy on Saturday (April 24).

Sahara Adventure Sports Group had won the Pune franchise for a whopping 370 million dollars at an auction held recently for inclusion of two new teams in the next edition of IPL, to be held in 2011.

The other franchise went to Rendezvous Sports World Limited, which clinched Kochi as the other new IPL team, triggering off the latest controversy in the league due to alleged involvement of ministers from the Union Government.

The controversy broke after IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi revealed on his Twitter feed that former Union Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor had an indirect stake in the new Kochi IPL franchise, which represents his home-state of Kerala.

On his part, Tharoor, a former high-flying UN official, denied any wrongdoing in awarding a tender for the cricket team, by saying that he was only a ‘mentor’ for the winning consortium because the team was to represent his home-state. (ANI)