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India Retold: BRAND IPL: LOTUS DESPITE MODI AND MUCK?
- Lalit Modi would perhaps not have expected that exposing Shashi Tharoor would generate the kind of Tsunami it has. He should have known that the Congress party has always successfully used/bought/arm-twisted people into hastily burying any scam, no matter how big, if it even as much as singes a powerful Congress leader. Shashi Tharoor was no ordinary Congressman. He was one of the star members of the new club of 'educated' and elitist Indians that Rahul Gandhi was crafting to get himself projected by the English media as the Great New And Only Hope for India, before the 2014 general elections .
By stripping Tharoor of the veneer that had made him very popular among English-speaking Indians and revealing his ugly, dishonest innards that were indistinguishable from those of the many dehati thieves that our flawed systems have thrown up as leaders, Lalit Modi committed an unpardonable crime. How could he dare to, when no else did, tell the world that Tharoor should actually be spelled 'Thugroor'? - There is going to be serious egg on some faces over the next few days. But, there is hope that brand IPL will not only not take a hit but will also grow bigger and stronger. This hope has arisen not because of what people have been writing and speaking while keeping the brand distinct from Modi and others, but because of the manner in which Modi is taking on the state and its instruments, including the media, which suggests that he guarded at least the brand zealously.
If, however, everything been as putrid as the hysterical reaction to 'Thugroorgate' is making it out to be, then the muck is not going to go out with Modi. Then, no matter who replaces him, everything will, away from public gaze, slide back to where it was. And who knows, Tharoor the Mentor - fixer in plain language - might quietly get his ministership and IPL team back too.
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