The 2026 IPL season is over, and the winning and runner-up teams have also been announced. Now, a big revelation has come about this IPL. In fact, former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi has claimed that match-fixing is still prevalent in cricket. According to him, the game is badly affected by both corruption and match-fixing. Lalit Modi has also made some important revelations about the infamous Kochi IPL franchise controversy of 2010. He told the entire story of a particular phone call made by Shashi Tharoor regarding this 16 year old case. Lalit Modi claimed that at that time, the then Union Minister Shashi Tharoor had called him and advised him not to raise any questions about Sunanda Pushkar.
Furthermore, he also alleged that a lot of pressure was put on him to sign the agreement. According to Lalit Modi, from the beginning he had some doubts about the ownership structure of the consortium that bought the Kochi IPL team. He claimed that the team was purchased for approximately $350 million, but there seemed to be a clear imbalance between the equity stake held by some shareholders and the actual financial investment they had made. Lalit Modi said that before signing the agreement, he had decided to meet all the members of the consortium. All concerned parties were present in this meeting held in Bengaluru; However, Sunanda Pushkar was not present there. During the same meeting, he was informed that Sunanda Pushkar was also being given a large equity stake in the team.
**Tharoor made a call after questioning Sunanda’s role**
Lalit Modi claimed that during the meeting he had asked the question who is Sunanda Pushkar and why is she being given such a big stake in the team. He had clearly said that he would not sign this agreement until he got a satisfactory answer to this question. According to Lalit Modi, after a few minutes he got a call from Shashi Tharoor. Modi claims that during the phone conversation, Shashi Tharoor told him not to ask any more questions about Sunanda Pushkar. Additionally, according to Modi, he was also warned during the conversation that if he took the matter further, punitive action could be taken against him—specifically, his locations could be raided. ‘There will be a raid here’
In an interview, Lalit Modi claimed, “Shashi Tharoor told me, ‘Don’t ask about Sunanda Pushkar. If you ask, your place will be raided by morning.’ I replied, ‘You may be the foreign minister, but you cannot threaten me like this.'” He further said that after this conversation, he refused to sign the agreement. However, he later received a call from the then BCCI President Shashank Manohar, who instructed him to sign the agreement. Lalit Modi claimed that he had signed that document under pressure.
What did Lalit Modi actually reveal about Shashi Tharoor?
Lalit Modi said, “Sonia Gandhi was supporting Shashi Tharoor. During that time, I was getting calls from Ahmed Patel and Pranab Mukherjee. Rajeev Shukla used to come to me and say, ‘Come on, Ahmed Patel is leaving.’… How can anyone give $350 million to a team – especially the Kochi consortium – where 75% shareholders were bearing 100% of the expenses? … They should get every dollar earned as revenue. I knew that this whole arrangement would collapse eventually… I had initially refused to sign the agreement because the meeting was held in Bangalore, except for one woman – Sunanda Pushkar. I had no idea who she was. Asked the consortium members, ‘Do you know any woman named Sunanda Pushkar? Why are you giving her 25% stake?’ ‘Who is she?’… I said, ‘I will not sign this agreement until I find out who Sunanda is.’ As soon as I said this, I got a call from Shashi Tharoor… He said, ‘Lalit, don’t ask about Sunanda Pushkar. She is my good friend. He added, ‘If you ask, I’ll raid your place first thing in the morning.'”
According to Lalit Modi, I replied, ‘Who do you think you are?’ ‘You may be India’s Minister of State for External Affairs, but will you ever dare to talk to me like that again?’ I hung up the phone and announced, ‘I will not sign this.’ Then, everything came out. It was two o’clock in the morning. Just then, I got a call from BCCI President Shashank Manohar – you can confirm this – who generally never interferes. He was really a very nice person. He said, ‘Lalit, you have to sign this agreement today itself.’… Now, I never disrespect any officer… I told him that I will sign the agreement under pressure, but I will clearly write that the President is forcing me to sign it… The next morning, when I woke up, the same news was printed on the front page of every newspaper: ‘Sunanda Pushkar is marrying Shashi Tharoor. Are.’ Only now did I understand what was the matter? Why was I made to sign the agreement?