New Delhi, April 20 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh phoned Congress' Kerala unit chief Ramesh Chennithala and senior leader Oommen Chandy before accepting Shashi Tharoor's resignation as minister of state for external affairs, party sources here said.

"The prime minister had spoken to Chennithala and Chandy over the phone before accepting Tharoor's resignation. He telephoned them because Tharoor was elected to Lok Sabha from Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram constituency and he quit the minister's post following a controversy over Kerala IPL," a Congress leader told IANS.

Tharoor, who resigned Sunday, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi Tuesday along with a delegation of party MPs from Kerala over the implementation of the Right to Education Act, said a Congress MP.

Tharoor, whose 11-month tenure was stained by controversies because of his personal indiscretions, resigned after the prime minister and the core committee of the Congress found that his continuance could cause more embarrassment to the party.

The controversy began after IPL commissioner Lalit K. Modi said on his twitter account that Tharoor had asked him to suppress information about his lady friend, Dubai-based Sunanda Pushkar, getting a stake in the IPL Kochi franchise.