New Delhi, Tuesday 13 Wednesday 2010:Reacting sharply to Shashi Tharoor’s public spat with IPL commissioner Lalit Modi over the Kochi team’s stake-holding structure, BJP general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said that the minister had abused authority on the issue and should be expelled from his post.

Citing the row as a ‘copybook’ case of corruption, Prasad told a press conference that the minister’s links with Sunanda Pushkar, one of the co-owners of the IPL Kochi franchisee, were in the public domain and his conduct was highly debatable.

“We’re interested in the conduct of a minister, have no interest in his private life,” Prasad told reporters. He added, “CBI investigation is warranted in the case and Congress must explain Tharoor’s role (in the IPL controversy).”

Meanwhile, Tharoor’s boss, External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, along with BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla, met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence in the morning to discuss the row, denying it nonetheless.

With the public showdown between Modi and Tharoor over the Kochi franchisee’s ownership structure snowballing into a major controversy, the BCCI has decided to convene a meeting of the IPL Governing Council within 10 days to discuss and take a decision on the episode.

“BCCI president has decided to convene an IPL Governing Council meeting within 10 days to discuss all the issues and take a decision,” Shukla told reporters.

Shukla, who maintained that her meeting with Sonia Gandhi had nothing to do with the Tharoor issue, said, “Whatever allegations have been made from both the sides, all those issues will be deliberated upto at the meeting of the Governing Council.”

“I don’t want to make a comment or any observation on what one has said against the other. All I was trying to suggest that all these issues will be discussed in the meeting convened by the BCCI president,” he said.

(News agency)