New Delhi:
What made Sharad Pawar abandon his protégé, Lalit Modi, in the great battle raging over the Indian Premier League (IPL)?
Sources tell NDTV that the tide turned at a meeting on Tuesday, reported on extensively by NDTV, where Pawar met with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Home Minister P Chidambaram.
(Forum: Can IPL survive sans Modi's vision?)Pawar, and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel have both denied that Lalit Modi has become the latest stress test of their Nationalist Congress Party's (NCP) alliance with the Congress.
But at the meeting, Pawar was reportedly told about recorded phone conversations between Modi and politicians. The Congress leaders also briefed Pawar on mounting evidence of financial irregularities involving Modi.
Pawar was reportedly told to distance himself from Modi.
Allegations that a union minister's relatives are involved with the IPL were also discussed. On Tuesday, Patel was asked by NDTV about newspaper reports that seemed to allege he's the minister in question. Patel emphatically denied this, saying he has nothing to do with either cricket or the IPL.
(Read: Praful Patel: No link with IPL, cricket)Separately, the NCP has denied allegations that when two new franchises of the IPL were auctioned last month, the party tried to favour bids from the Videocon Group and the Adani Group of Ahmedabad. Both bids were unsuccessful. Patel cited their defeat as an example of how his party had no role to play during that controversial auction (one of the two bids that was successful came from a consortium associated with Shashi Tharoor, who was forced to resign as minister because of his link to that franchise).
(Read: Shashi Tharoor resigns after Congress says enough)In an interview to NDTV, Pawar's daughter, Supriya Sule, has also said that none of her family members were directly or indirectly involved with bids for the two new IPL teams.
(Watch: My family has no IPL links, says Supriya Sule)Pawar has reportedly decided that Modi must now step down as Chairman of the IPL. However, Modi has said there's no chance of that happening. He says he's preparing a vigorous defense that he will share with the IPL at Monday's crucial meeting of the governing council.
(Read: Modi prepares defense, says won't resign)Congress sources say that given that Tharoor had to quit the government because of Modi, the party is now keen that Modi also be punished. The fact that Modi seems linked to several questionable cricket-related deals gives the Congress a considerable upper hand.