Daily News

Mumbai: Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's daughter and Lok Sabha MP Supriya Sule defended her family and claimed that they had nothing to do with the Indian Premier League team auctions.

Sule said that her family or husband "has got nothing to do with Pune-based construction company City Corporation's MD Anirudhha Deshpande. However, she admitted that her family holds shares in Deshpande's company "I am a minority shareholder of 16 per cent. My family has got nothing to do with Mr. Deshpande. My husband is not close to Deshpande," Sule told CNN-IBN. "I know I am honest. I live with conviction and will live this way for the rest of my life. You will never spot me with BCCI officials," said Sule.

Pointing out that the bid for Pune franchisee was won by Sahara Group, Sule blamed the media for "making a mountain out of a molehill".

"It was an open bid. There is nothing illegal in bidding. The company has no interest in this process. Mr Deshpande lost it anyway. Arunbhai Mehta, the chairman of the company, asked Mr Deshpande not to do it (bid). The board had passed a resolution not to bid and if Mr Deshpande still went ahead, he did it in his individual capacity. We have nothing to do with that," she claimed.

She added that her father was the president of Board of Control for Cricket in India when the IPL started in 2008 and could have easily got an IPL team.

"Sharad Pawar was the head of BCCI when the IPL started. It wasn't difficult for him to get a team," she said

Echoing her father's views she said that Deshpande had bid for the IPL team in his personal capacity.

"Mr Deshpande has made the position absolutely clear. In their board meeting with me, the board took unanimous position that City Corporation will not participate in bidding. He was allowed in an individual capacity in the bidding process," Pawar had said.

Deshpande also claimed that no one from the Pawar family was involved in the bidding process.

"There is no money involve in the present IPL bid. We didn't get the bid. Just for clarification anybody from the Pawar family was involved in the bid," he said.

The Agriculture Minister got support from an unlikely quarter. Suspended IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi tweeted that “Mr Anirudh Deshpande and his consortium clearly stated in there (sic) bid documents that they will set up a Newco if they were successful bidders in the IPL auction and he was using the company which he is a shareholder of - City Corp to only establish his personal Net Worth Criteria.”