IPL-Gate is all over the news, Mr.Tharoor, our debonair Minister of State (MoS) for the Ministry of External Affairs (MeA) is one of the first casualties. What I haven’t been able to fathom is the large scale support and dishing of the good minister in public forums like twitter. I haven’t really been able to get around the idea of him having done something drastically illegal that would merit the kind of polarization we are seeing. Let’s look at some of the allegations against the good minister.

• Allegation #1 – Mr. Tharoor used his position and influence to get the deal done in favor for the Kochi consortium
  Hmm…this is an interesting one, considering that there is a certain politician who is virtually the patron saint of Indian Cricket and who could have gotten the deal done with more certainty and less hoopla. Also the winning bid for Kochi stood at Rs.1,476 crores, while the losing bid was apparently way lower. For someone who is supposed to have helped “rig” the process, he certainly overbid and did a poor job at that. So what exactly is Mr.Tharoor supposed to have helped do ?
• Allegation #2 – Mr. Tharoor received Rs.70 crore as a fee for his role, that he sought to disguise as free “sweat” equity paid to one Ms. Sunanada Pushkar
  Again, for doing a poor job I don’t think you get a reward. Still lets see this too. Well, first of all it’s the Kochi Consortium’s money, they can very well give away all of it if they wish. I don’t think we should be bothered as long as its not public money that finds the way into that 70 crore amount. Also, remember that the IPL and BCCI are private trusts, and contrary to public belief not arms of the government. Secondly, on the issue of tax evasion, while I don’t really know what the IT rules are, I don’t think taxes really come into the picture on notional income which isn’t yet realized. It would be like paying taxes every time your bonus shares go up in price. However here I may be wrong.
• Allegation #3 – Mr. Tharoor’s antics in public did not befit a minister of his stature
  Guilty as charged. Mr. Tharoor what on earth were you thinking ?

To summarize, in my opinion, Mr. Tharoor may or may not be guilty of points one or two, but its certainly not right for us to crucify the man before all the facts tumble out (and boy are they tumbling out).

So far Mr. Tharoor only seems to be guilty of being in love with the limelight, and lets hope for his sake that it only seems to be that once all the dust has settled