NEW DELHI, April 18 (IANS): Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, under pressure to quit over the Kochi IPL row, met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for about 50 minutes at his residence here Sunday.

The minister drove away after the meeting without talking to journalists massed outside the prime minister's residence. Manmohan Singh returned home a day earlier after a week-long visit to the US and Brazil.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi gave no details but underlined that
Manmohan Singh had declared abroad that he would be acting on the Indian Premier League (IPL) controversy only after studying the facts.

The opposition has demanded that Tharoor should either resign from the council of ministers or be sacked for allegedly trying to influence the selection of the IPL Kochi cricket franchise.

Tharoor has refuted the charge, but the involvement of one of his friends, Sunanda Pushkar, in the Kochi franchise has dented his denial.

Pushkar holds sweat equity in a company that is part of a consortium that won the Kochi franchise. She has admitted her friendship with the minister but denied she was his proxy.

The meeting with Manmohan Singh comes ahead of a Congress leadership meeting scheduled here later in the evening to decide the minister's fate. The evening meeting will be attended by the prime minister, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and senior ministers.

Sunanda Pushkar gives up IPL stake: Dubai-based Sunanda Pushkar has given up her stake in the IPL Kochi franchise following a row involving her friend and Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor, her lawyer said today.

Lawyer Ashish Mehta read out a statement to NDTV news channel saying Pushkar had "voluntarily" given up the the sweat equity Rendezvous Sports World had offered her. "The decision has nothing to do with Tharoor. This is her own decision," he said.

Rendezvous Sports World is a member of the consortium that won the Kochi Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise.