NEW DELHI: Congress on Monday alleged a close relationship between former IPL chief Lalit Modi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, saying a BCCI inquiry had indicted the former IPL czar for rigging bids in favour of an industrialist close to the BJP brass.

Former minister Kapil Sibal produced copies of emails and a BCCI probe report to allege the PM knows more than he appears to know about ‘Lalitgate’ in which foreign minister Sushma Swaraj is facing charges of helping Lalit procure travel documents in the UK. “It shows Narendra Modi knows all about Lalit Modi and the acts of favouritism shown towards him. That is why he is silent on the issue,” Sibal said.

Sibal alleged that as chief minister and home minister of Gujarat, Modi and Amit Shah were elected to Gujarat Cricket Association and a day later, on September 16, 2009, the vice-president of Rajasthan Royals IPL team wrote to then IPL chief Lalit Modi seeking a meeting with the CM to “work out key relationship”. Lalit Modi replied he was meeting the CM and that “they will do what is needed. He is very close to me”.

While Rajasthan IPL team adopted Ahmedabad’s Motera stadium as its ‘home venue’, playing four matches there, the BCCI issued tenders for additional ‘team franchisees’ on December 17, 2009. Sibal alleged that in February 2010, Lalit held a closed-door meeting with industrialist Gautam Adani for bidding for an IPL team for Ahmedabad.

Lalit introduced restrictive conditions in the bids — that the bidder have a net worth of $1 billion and give an upfront bank guarantee of Rs 460 crore — to favour Adani/Videocon group, he alleged. Following complaints, the additional conditions weren’t approved by the BCCI general council meeting on March 7, 2010.

Reacting to the charge, environment minister Prakash Javadekar said Congress was resorting to “sensationalism” by levelling such “untrue, baseless and unfounded” allegations.

