New Delhi, June 6 (IANS) The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sunday said the City Corporation company, in which its chief and union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and his family members have equity, had resolved not to bid for Indian Premier League’s (IPL) Pune team.
The party denied that Pawar and members of his family had any role in an unsuccessful bid for an IPL team as the March resolution by the Pune-based company made it clear that it will not take part in the bid.
Reacting to reports in the media that board of directors of City Corporation, in which the Pawars have 16.22 percent stake, had authorised their managing director Anirudh Deshpande Jan 31 this year to bid for Pune IPL franchise on behalf of the company, NCP spokesperson D.P. Tripathi said the January decision had been cancelled by the resolution passed by the company in March.
‘The March 17 resolution passed by the company cancels January 31 decision. The March 17 resolution said that the company was not involved in the Pune bid,’ Tripathi told IANS.
He said that Deshpande had attached a sheet of paper with his bid which said that he will raise money through a new consortium if his bid was successful.
The NCP leader rejected Bharatiya Janata Party’s demand for resignation of Pawar, saying the main opposition party ‘seeks resignation on everything’.
On Communist Party of India-Marxist’s (CPI-M) demand that a joint parliamentary panel should look into the controversies surrounding the IPL, Tripathi said the Enforcement Directorate and other government agencies were already conducting an inquiry.
Pawar has maintained that no member of his family was part of any IPL team nor had they taken part in the bidding process and Deshpande had made the bid for the Pune team in his individual capacity.
The Pune team franchise was won by the Sahara group.
–Indo-Asian New Service
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