The politics & history of Lalit Modi
Rohit Mahajan
IN 2003, Lalit Modi's luck changed for the better — Vasundhara Raje became the Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Until then Modi, who belongs to a wealthy business family, had been finding alternating successes and failures in his own business ventures, including in the lottery and TV industries. Finally, cricket made Modi. He didn't succeed as a businessman, but he succeeded as a cricket administrator, by working closely with the politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats who control Indian cricket.
Modi's tryst with politicians, and cricket administration, began in Himachal Pradesh, when he “donated” Rs 12 lakh to the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) in 1999 and joined the state association. HPCA was then controlled by the Congress politicians, including Rajinder Zar and Raghubir Thakur, even though the state was ruled by the BJP, with Prem Kumar Dhumal as chief minister. The next year, Modi had to move out of HPCA because of a conflict with Dhumal — probably because Dhumal's own son, Anurag Thakur, was ready to take over the HPCA. Anurag Thakur became HPCA president in 2000, and there was no room for Modi in the HPCA, and he was left as a stateless cricket administrator. Then, in 2003, Vasundhara Raje became Chief Minister of Rajasthan. Lalit Modi's mother and wife were friends of Vasundhara Raje. This presented Modi an opportunity he'd been waiting for.
The Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) was controlled by a prominent business family, the Rungta family. It was virtually impossible to break their hegemony, so deeply entrenched and powerful were the Rungta brothers. This is where the advantage of having a chief minister friend helped. Modi became a member of the association by providing his name as “Lalit Kumar”. The Rungtas say that this was accomplished with criminal forgery because the signatures of “Lalit Kumar” and "Lalit Kumar Modi" in the RCA records are completely different. All that became irrelevant because in 2004, the Rajasthan government promulgated the Rajasthan Sports Ordinance. In the earlier elections, individual members of the RCA were allowed to vote; after the Sports Ordinance, only representatives of the 32 districts were allowed to vote. This changed the power equation in the RCA — a very large number of members who supported the Rungtas were now ineligible to vote. The Rungtas were beaten and Modi's relentless rise in cricket began.
In 2008, the year the IPL was launched, the BJP lost the elections in Rajasthan and Vasundhara Raje was no more the chief minister. In the election campaign, Lalit Modi was a big factor — he was sarcastically called the “Super Chief Minister” because of his proximity to Vasundhara Raje, and his alleged powers over the state machinery. It was alleged that he had a hand in the changes in the state's liquor policy as well as in changes in the rules of land use. One allegation he didn't deny was that he had acquired two old havelis in Amber, near Amber fort, in order to convert them into hotels/resorts. These havelis were allegedly bought at a throwaway price. The priest living in one of the havelis had resisted the sale and eviction. The superintendent of Amber Fort Palace had raised objections against the sale. The havelis were property of the state, yet the Vasundhara Raje government allowed the deal to proceed. When the Congress came to power in late 2008, and Ashok Gehlot took over as Chief Minister, the new government promised investigations into Modi's alleged misdeeds. The havelis were taken back by the government. But not much else happened. Modi has friends in every party. Sharad Pawar is not accustomed to losing elections, but he lost one in the BCCI. In 2004, he contested the election for the post of the BCCI president but lost by one vote to Ranbir Singh Mahendra. Mahendra, the son of former Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal, was supported by Jagmohan Dalmiya. Pawar won in 2005, and Lalit Modi was among the friends who helped him win. Modi, finally in power in the BCCI in 2005, filled up its coffers by marketing and selling cricket rights to TV companies at hitherto unimaginable rates. A year after the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) was launched by the Zee Group, Modi and BCCI followed its franchise model to set up the IPL in 2008. The BCCI began to disburse huge sums of money to its state associations, ensuring their unquestioned “loyalty”. Modi's circle of friends magnified. One day he would be in Delhi with Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj and Rajiv Shukla, the next day he would be in Mumbai with Sharad Pawar, or with Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad or Jaipur.
In 2010, Modi wanted Gujarat to get an IPL team, owned either by the Adanis or the Dhoot brothers of the Videocon group. But a conglomerate from Kerala, Rendezvous Sports World (RSW), bidding for a franchise for Kochi city, won the bid for one of the two available IPL teams. The Kochi franchise had the support of Shashi Tharoor, MP and minister in the Manmohan Singh government. Gujarat, thus, didn't get an IPL team, and Lalit Modi was incensed — he went online and made damning disclosures about Tharoor's wife-to-be, Sunanda Pushkar, having a stake in RSW. Tharoor had to resign. Modi's decline was swift — he had been accused of heavy-handidness and had no real friends in the BCCI. In his hour of crisis, his political friends deserted him, even Jaitley, who was part of the BCCI's disciplinary committee which found Modi guilty of several wrongdoings. Modi was expelled from the BCCI in 2013. When he was removed from the IPL and the BCCI, only Pawar spoke for him, and in the next IPL Governing Council meeting, only IS Bindra supported Modi.
Modi was issued show-cause notices. The charges included corruption, giving contracts to friends, and high-handedness. Modi promptly fled India and has been residing in London since 2010. The Enforcement Directorate wants to question him in a case relating to violation of India's foreign exchange rules, but Modi refuses to return. He says that his life is under threat from the underworld, though he parties quite openly abroad.
Modi, it is clear, is not done with politicians. Sushma Swaraj helped him procure travel documents, and her husband and daughter have both been his lawyers.
When the controversy over Sushma Swaraj helping him erupted, Modi decided to take revenge upon his former friend and benefactor Vasundhara Raje. He dragged her into the controversy by revealing that Vasundhara Raje supported his application for immigration to the United Kingdom in 2011. Vasundhara Raje came back to power in Rajasthan in December 2013 and this time she seems to have done nothing to help Modi. In fact, last October Modi was replaced as RCA president by Amin Pathan, considered close to Vasundhara Raje. In March this year, the RCA passed a no-confidence motion against Modi. Before last year's General Election, Lalit Modi had sung paeans in praise of Narendra Modi. But he made a big miscalculation — he was highly critical of Jaitley. Jaitley lost the Parliamentary election, but he became a very important member of the Narendra Modi government. That made things difficult for Lalit Modi, though covertly or overtly, he had other politicians working to help him.
rohit.mahajan@gmail.com
Politicians and the fine art of cricket administration
Amit Shah, Gujarat: It was only after he was elected the Prime Minister that Narendra Modi resigned as president of the Gujarat Cricket Association. His right-hand man Amit Shah is now the GCA president
Sharad Pawar, Mumbai: NCP boss Pawar, the former BCCI president, was elected the Mumbai Cricket Association president last week
Rajiv Shukla, Uttar Pradesh: The Congress MP and IPL chairman is the secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association.
Anurag Thakur, HP: BJP MP Thakur has been the president of the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association since 2000, and became BCCI secretary earlier this year
Farooq Abdullah, J&K: The National Conference leader, a former minister, has been long-time president of the Jammu & Kashmir Cricket Association
Jyotiraditya Scindia, MP: Congress leader Scindia is the chairman of the Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association
Anirudh Chaudhary, Haryana: Chaudhary, president of the Haryana Cricket Association, is the grandson of former chief minister Bansi Lal and son of former BCCI president Ranbir Mahendra
