{"id":245923,"date":"2015-07-03T11:55:31","date_gmt":"2015-07-03T06:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=245923"},"modified":"2015-07-03T11:55:31","modified_gmt":"2015-07-03T06:25:31","slug":"too-clever-by-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/too-clever-by-half\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Clever by Half"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Man
Man of the moment<\/strong> Lalit Modi might be down presently but he cannot be written off that easily. photo: AFP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is tough to read Lalit Modi\u2019s mind. More importantly, it is almost impossible to decipher his motives and actions. Finally, it is a hopeless exercise to attempt to understand his personality. People judge him by what they wish to see. To describe his traits is futile. Like the blind men who portray an elephant in varying manner, he means different things to different people. The reason: Lalit Kumar Modi, who is at the epicentre of #LalitGate scandal that engulfed Sushma Swaraj, external affairs minister, Vasundhara Raje, Rajasthan chief minister, Arun Jaitley, finance minister, and NDA\u00a0\u00a0and UPA\u00a0politicians, is a bundle of contradictions, and loves to \u2018dance on any chance\u2019.<\/p>\n

His father, KK Modi, who lords over the nearly $3 billion business empire that comprises, among others, Godfrey Phillips and Indofil Industries, feels he is a brilliant, yet maverick and strong-headed individual who is bubbling with ideas. His enemies like N Srinivasan, chairman of International Cricket Council (ICC), think he is a conceited, ambitious and arrogant megalomaniac. His loyalists say he is charming, hard-working and brilliant. Those who don\u2019t know him well contend he is corrupt to the core. He is all of the above \u2013 and more. You can hate LaMo or love him, but you cannot ignore him.<\/p>\n

He loves a no-holds-barred battle, even if his friends get scarred in the process. He is a consummate deal-maker, who gets things done even if the rules need to be twisted a wee bit. He runs his businesses like a fiefdom, and hates any challenges to his powers. He thinks big, but fails to realise the future consequences. He is ambitious, over-confident and self-obsessed; LaMo feels that he knows best. He is a die-hard networker, who has the urge to know everyone who is someone.<\/p>\n

Founder of \u2018Fight Club\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether it was his career as a businessman or cricket administrator, LaMo never shied away from a fight. In fact, he doesn\u2019t hold back any punches when he is in the midst of one. He wants to win at any cost; if he loses, he carries the grudge until he gets his revenge. In 1999, he \u2018bribed\u2019 his way into the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA). Raghubir Singh Thakur, former head of the association, admitted that LaMo donated 1,200,000 and got the HPCA\u00a0membership.<\/p>\n

Within a year, LaMo was thrown out after a tussle with Prem Kumar Dhumal, the then state chief minister, and his son, Anurag Thakur, who was the HPCA\u00a0president in 2000. Later, LaMo took on Thakur, who is now secretary of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).In May 2015 after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the offices of bookies, LaMo tweeted: \u201cAgain these jokers in @bcci @icc @ipl #indiacements @anuragthakur trying 2 hoodwink us all in regard to #illegal betting quantum.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his ouster from HPCA, he surreptitiously got into the Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA), which was ruled by the Rungta family, which had 57 votes among the family members and loyalists, and enjoyed a clear majority given that the total votes were around 90. Given his cricket ambitions, LaMo decided to muscle out the Rungta family. Sources contend that he got his friend, Raje, who was then also the chief minister, to promulgate an ordinance in 2004.<\/p>\n

The ordinance, Rajasthan Sports (Registration, Recognition & Regulation of Associations), asked all the state\u2019s sports associations to disband and register afresh. In addition, it stated that individual members in any association would not be allowed to vote or stand for any post in any organisational elections. Suddenly, the Rungta family and its loyalists had no say in the RCA. Backed by Raje, LaMo gained support of the voting members and became the association\u2019s president in 2005.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, he clashed with Michel Adam, president, Fashion TV, whose channel was distributed in India by LaMo. The latter claimed that FTV\u00a0had flouted the contract when it decrypted its signal and converted the channel into a free-to-air one. Adam had no confidence in LaMo\u2019s strategy to make FTV\u00a0a paid channel.\u00a0FTV filed civil-criminal charges against LaMo in France and India in mid- 2003. As the two parties fought a legal battle, they settled out of court in May 2004.<\/p>\n

Everyone knows about the ongoing, five-year-old and legendary war between LaMo and Srinivasan. Both claimed that the other had caused losses worth tens of thousands of crore to the BCCI. In recent times, after #LalitGate scandal, LaMo leaked emails on his twitter handle that hinted at Srinivasan\u2019s guilt. In 2010, the BCCI\u00a0issued three show-cause notices to LaMo to show how the IPL\u00a0fish had rotted at the head. Both LaMo and Srinivasan have denied the charges.<\/p>\n

Consummate deal-maker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing can elaborate LaMo\u2019s ability to finalise a seemingly-impossible deal than the manner in which he renegotiated IPL\u2019s telecast rights with Sony four weeks before the beginning of IPL\u2019s second season in 2009. LaMo wanted to rework the deal a year after it was inked because he was unhappy with Sony on issues like incorrect declaration of advertising time and dirty feed of the IPL\u00a0matches. But when he could not reach a consensus with Sony \u201con language (of the reworked contract) and guarantees (to be paid by Sony),\u201d he abruptly cancelled the contract on 14 March 2009.<\/p>\n

BCCI\u00a0sent the termination letter at 8.14 pm, and two hours later, at 10.15 pm, Sony replied that it would approach the Bombay High Court the next day at 11 am to seek an interim relief. LaMo knew that this would happen. Therefore, even before he cancelled the agreement, he initiated discussions with other potential broadcasters such as ESPN, STAR, NDTV and wsg India, which had won the original bid and outsourced the telecast within the subcontinent to Sony in 2008.<\/p>\n

The idea behind the talks with other broadcasters was to convince the court that it couldn\u2019t give relief to Sony as that would hamper BCCI\u2019s ongoing moves to sell the rights to a new party. However, LaMo still felt that the best solution was to arrive at a consensus with Sony since he couldn\u2019t be sure about the court\u2019s decision. He had less than 13 hours \u2014 between 10.15 pm (14 March) when he got Sony\u2019s email and 11 am (15 March) when it would approach the high court. The lawyers from the three sides \u2013 IPL, Sony and WSG\u00a0India closeted themselves in a room.<\/p>\n

A new deal was stuck within a few hours at 3 am. WSG\u00a0India decided to buy back the rights for the subcontinent, but it asked the BCCI\u00a0to sign the agreement with its sister concern, WSG\u00a0Mauritius. The reason: if the judge was told that a new contract was inked with a global firm, he or she may find it tougher to grant a legal relief to Sony. LaMo was right; on March 16, the high court refused to extend the interim relief to Sony when LaMo produced the signed deal with wsg India and wsg Mauritius.<\/p>\n

In a bid to keep a foot in the \u2018telecast\u2019 door, Sony asked the court to bar the BCCI\u00a0from signing an agreement with any other broadcaster. The fact is that Sony knew that wsg Mauritius would need to outsource the telecast to a third party as wsg India had done in 2008. LaMo had preempted this too. On 15 March itself, wsg Mauritius was given a list of approved broadcasters to whom the former could quickly sell the telecast rights for the subcontinent. Therefore, the court refused to entertain Sony\u2019s plea. The same day, 16 March, wsg Mauritius inked a draft deal with ndtv Mauritius.<\/p>\n

Sony was forced to crawl back to the negotiating table. Within a few days, the broadcaster agreed to an out-of-court settlement with BCCI. It agreed to all the conditions imposed by LaMo. On March 25, the BCCI\u00a0inked two separate \u2018telecast\u2019 contracts \u2013 one with Sony for IPL\u00a0telecast within the subcontinent for nine years, and the other with WSG\u00a0India for telecast in the rest of the world for the same period. IPL\u2019s second season was just two weeks away.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, the value of the telecast rights sold to Sony and WSG\u00a0India in 2009 was worth over Rs 8,000 crore for nine years, a huge jump over the earlier figure of over 5,000 crore for ten years. This was exactly what LaMo wanted. After the successful first season of IPL, he realised that the value of the telecast rights had zoomed, and wanted Sony and WSG\u00a0to pay a higher price. He succeeded.<\/p>\n

\"Starstruck
Starstruck<\/strong> Lalit Modi, seen here with Bollywood actor Preity Zinta, had a knack to be in the news. Photo: AFP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOverconfidence & arrogance<\/strong>
\nTime and again, whether in business matters or on cricketing issues, LaMo\u2019s bloated ego and I-can-do-no-wrong attitude has scorched him. In the 1990s, he signed a distribution deal with ESPN and cajoled it to sign cricket telecast rights with respective nations\u2019 boards. ESPN immediately bought the rights in India, Australia, England, West Indies, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. STAR, which was ESPN\u2019s competitor woke up late and could only manage South Africa and Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n

In several interviews, LaMo boasted how he and ESPN beat STAR, owned by media magnate, Rupert Murdoch. Several critics, including the then and current BCCI\u00a0president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, said that ESPN had overpaid for the rights. However, LaMo and ESPN managed to monetise the rights. STAR then aggressively entered the race, which hiked the values of the rights. To curb competition, LaMo and his father met Murdoch to discuss a potential buyout of ESPN by STAR.<\/p>\n

The deal went through, but LaMo lost out because of his bloated ego. He didn\u2019t realise that STAR had a distribution network in India and, therefore, the combined STAR-ESPN didn\u2019t need another distributor. ESPN cancelled the deal with LaMo, who didn\u2019t insist on a protection clause. Similarly, when LaMo entered the online lottery business, he didn\u2019t understand that the various states could insist on sales tax on gross revenues, rather than net income. It made the business model unviable.<\/p>\n

LaMo\u2019s biggest business debacle was when, as a distributor for Ten Sports, he battled with the public broadcaster, Doordarshan (DD). In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that \u201cairwaves (broadcast signals) are public property and hence are owned or controlled by the Government.\u201d It added that since cricket matches involved \u201cnational interest\u201d, no private company could monopolise the telecast rights. The issue cropped up again when India visited Pakistan for a one-day series.<\/p>\n

Ten Sports held the rights to telecast the matches, whose viewership was bound to run into hundreds of millions. LaMo was in a position to rake in huge profits as the India distributor of the paid channel. However, DD\u00a0used the 1995 judgement to claim that the India-Pakistan series was in \u201cnational interest\u201d and, therefore, it should be allowed to telecast the games simultaneously. The Supreme Court agreed; at that time, LaMo estimated his potential loss at 200 crore.<\/p>\n

Nothing shows LaMo\u2019s arrogance more than his role in #LalitGate. After the names of Swaraj and Raje were dragged into it, he went crazy. In a bid to save the BJP and his friends, he named several others, including Mukesh Ambani, India\u2019s richest man, Kapil Sibal, the former telecom minister, Jaitley, who he believed was the backroom mastermind, and P Chidambaram, former finance minister. He leaked documents to prove that he was close to politicians from all political parties.<\/p>\n

Sources say that LaMo\u2019s objective was to stall any moves to extradite him from the UK, where he ran away in 2010 after he was sacked by the BCCI\u00a0and ED\u00a0began investigations against him. By disclosing sensitive information, he sent a crucial message to the powers-that-be \u2014 if you dare to arrest or extradite me, I will expose everyone, possibly including Narendra Modi, Prime Minister, and Amit Shah, BJP\u00a0president. Unfortunately, the dice rolled against him.<\/p>\n

After all the startling revelations and tweets, the government has no option but to aggressively go after LaMo. To prove its seriousness to pursue the 16 cases against him to their logical ends, it has to pressurise the UK regime.<\/p>\n

Already, an ED\u00a0delegation has flown to Singapore to investigate a money laundering case against LaMo, which involves a payment of $80 million as facilitation fees when, as mentioned above, the IPL\u00a0telecast rights were renegotiated in 2009.<\/p>\n

So, is it endgame for LaMo? Yes and no. To shut his mouth, the government is likely to twist his arms, and collect enough evidence to bolster the cases against LaMo.<\/p>\n

Simultaneously, the regime is likely to take it easy as it may take several years to get a court indictment, or even an extradition. However, no one knows what LaMo will do. Already, he has changed his strategy.<\/p>\n

Instead of defending his friends, Swaraj and Raje, he has targeted UPA\u00a0politicians and trained his guns on two arch enemies \u2013 Jaitley and Srinivasan. Only if LaMo can play test cricket as well as he resorts to T20 slogs!<\/p>\n

editor@tehelka.com<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The controversial \u2018Mr Not-Quite-Cricket\u2019 is a bundle of contradictions. Each time people think that they have figured him out, he slips through their fingers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":245925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2519,56,39],"tags":[2653,2879,2516,1163,3143,9362,1470,9363,9242,6384,895,6385,1573,9364,9365,892,3817,3218,6437,9366],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}