Giving a new twist to the bidding controversy, suspended IPL commissioner Lalit Modi on Friday claimed that the Twenty20 league's interim chairman Chirayu Amin was part of the consortium that made an unsuccessful bid for the Pune franchise in March.
Modi said Aniruddha Deshpande, Managing Director of City Corporation, in which Sharad Pawar and his family have 16 per cent shares, made the bid in March for a new consortium which included Amin.
"There were three members in the consortium that was part of the bid. They were Aniruddha, Akruti and Chirayu
Amin," said Modi, whose suspension saw Amin being appointed as the interim IPL chairman.
"It's a fact of life and I cannot change or distort facts. They were the bidders, one can't change that," Modi said.
Amin was not available for comment.
Amin, a Vadodara-based industrialist who heads Baroda Cricket Association, was named the interim chairman in April after Modi was suspended on charges of financial irregularities, including bid-rigging.
Modi had earlier defended Pawar, saying no one from the Agriculture minister's family had anything to do with Deshpande's bid.