Coming as it does a day after prominent BCCI member and Union power minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that "propriety demanded that Mr Srinivasan step aside" and hours away from a written statement from the Union sports ministry that because of a "conflict of interest in the inquiry, the BCCI president should tender his resignation on moral grounds", Shukla's message clearly contradicted Srinivasan's assertion that the board was united behind him.
Hours later, former BCCI boss and senior Union minister Sharad Pawar jumped into the fray with a demand for a home ministry inquiry into all 75 matches of this year's IPL, while another former boss Jagmohan Dalmiya said it was time to clean up the league.
In a clear indication that the pitch is turning sharply against Srinivasan, BCCI treasurer Ajay Shirke, who'd been stonewalling the past few days, admitted on Times Now that he would have stepped down from the board had he been in Srinivasan's place.
"The credibility of the board and the perception in which it is operating is taking a hit, and increasingly so. Given the continuous media speculation and the resulting damage to the image of the board, it is important that this is put to rest," he said.
Also, senior board members told this paper that several IPL franchisees had indicated they wanted Srinivasan to step down, primarily on the grounds that it was hurting the image of the league and could eventually affect the valuation of their teams.
After a hard-hitting front page lead in TOI questioning the silence of the board leadership, Shukla, a Union minister, finally came out in the open and told the media that Jaitley of BJP had indicated to Srinivasan in Kolkata over the weekend that he should step aside while the inquiry was on (TOI had reported this in its Wednesday edition).
In a move that could put further pressure on Srinivasan, Shukla said he would not seek a third term as IPL chief. "It is a one-year post which gets renewed every year at the AGM, but I don't intend to do the job for a third year."
With so many big guns now publicly training their guns on Srinivasan, even his supporters appeared to be dithering - they either betrayed a degree of uncertainty about their stand or seemed poised to switch sides. A BCCI insider claimed that the endgame had begun. "It's no longer a question of 'if', but 'when'," he said.
Faced with a situation that was turning increasingly bleak for him, Srinivasan made a disingenuous claim on Wednesday: that he was doing exactly what Jaitley and Shukla had advised him to do - he was dissociating himself from the "process" of the probe.
But Shukla torpedoed Srinivasan's attempts for a way out by making it clear to TOI that they wanted him to do more than stay away from the inquiry; they wanted him to step aside while it was on.
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