Tharoor asked to clarify position

The Congress leadership has asked Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor to clarify his position publicly. Tharoor will give a statement in Parliament on Thursday. He has been instructed to furnish all facts and details about his involvement in the IPL franchisee auction.

A peeved Congress leadership has also made it clear that if the facts are later proved otherwise, he may have to quit the minister’s chair.

Tharoor was summoned to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s residence on a Wednesday night. Defence Minister A K Antony was also present at the meeting, that lasted for almost 40 minutes. The two trusted lieutenants of party president Sonia Gandhi made it clear to the minister of state that, this time, he had to defend himself and the party would not come to his rescue immediately.

While Tharoor enjoys a strong rapport with Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president has so far refused to give him an audience. Earlier, Gandhi convened two meetings today to take stock of the situation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meanwhile, said he will take action against Tharoor “if necessary”. “I have heard about these things (controversies). I do not have all the facts before me. When I go back, I will get all the facts and, in the light of those, if any action is necessary, I think that would be the proper way to proceed,” Singh said in Washington.

In the first meeting, held in the morning at Gandhi’s residence, the Congress president sought reports from Mukherjee and Antony about the Tharoor controversy. The second meeting, however, was a larger one, with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal and Law Minister Veerappa Moily also chipping in. According to sources, the second meeting was mainly to draw strategies for tackling the expected attack from Opposition parties in Parliament.