Modi Vs Tharoor: another scoop

IPL chairman Lalit Modi had drawn up ambitious plans to make moolah from his ongoing tiff with Minister of state for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor. Sources close to Modi have told India’s number one blog Humor Unplugged that there was more to the whole episode than what appeared in the mainstream media and that Modi was determined to milk the whole episode for its monetary worth. This was before the IT sleuths moved in and the fight took political overtones, forcing Modi to abandon his plans.

Sources say that in the initial hours of the fight, Modi contacted his friends in the media and asked them to bid for receiving juicy sound bites on the incident from him. A base price was fixed for using these soundbites on various channels like press, television, web and even social media. A part of the rights for his sound bites were handed over to his relatives who didn’t have to bid. Modi went on to assure the bidding participants that they would have the exclusive rights for propagating his take.

In the meantime, Modi’s aids reached out to Shashi Tharoor and Sunanda Pushkar and asked them to participate in a friendly match to be arranged on the sidelines of IPL3. The match was to be held between Modi XI and Tharoor XI, comprising of key national and international cricket players. Modi had even asked BCCI to release a stadium either in Mumbai or Kolkata for the match.  The tickets for the match would have been priced INR 15000 upwards and the collections would have been moved to Lalit Modi Ego Massage Foundation (LAME). Shashi Tharoor was to receive 40 percent of all collections, including gate and broadcast fees. But the whole plan fell apart as soon as the tax sleuths and politicians moved in. It is not know if Shashi Tharoor or Sunanda Pushkar had agreed to participate in the match.

“Modi never thought that the tax guys would get involved in the whole quagmire. By the time his plan was complete, the tax guys had already descended on IPL headquarters and done their survey. Modi was completely distraught by the turn of events and he decided to concentrate on saving his skin, rather than making money out of the controversy and so the plan remained on the drawing board,” a close aide of Modi told Humor Unplugged over a casual chat during the Kings XI vs Deccan Chargers match in Dharamshala on Friday.

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