Ronen apologises before RS panel for remark

Indian Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen had a rough time in the Rajya Sabha Privileges Committee...

Indian Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen had a rough time in the Rajya Sabha Privileges Committee, which met under the chairmanship of Deputy Chairman of the Upper House K Rahman Khan, on Friday. The senior diplomat is facing privilege moves for his famous “headless chicken” remark, which he made in an interview in the context of the Opposition against the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.

Sen, who had sailed through the Lok Sabha Privileges Committee with considerable ease last week, was subjected to grilling by the elders for about 50 minutes. “We will prepare our report on November 16 after we get the minutes of Friday’s proceedings,” said a member of the committee. Sources said the envoy made an exhaustive statement at the outset, expressed his regret and offered an unqualified apology for the remarks.

The statement was more or less the same one which he made in the Lok Sabha committee, but Sen omitted his wife’s reference which he had made to reinforce his stand that he had the habit of using the expression “headless chicken” in a casual manner.

Story continues below this ad

Sen recounted the key assignments he had held under different political regimes in his career and maintained that he had never held any press conference. However, he was under immense pressure on account of the goings-on with regard to the India-US nuclear deal. In the process, he happened to share his personal views with many people, including the journalist, who had converted his off-the-record discussion into an interview.

The Ambassador said the same pressure is there even now and he still feels that it is the best deal. This, according to the sources, provoked the MPs to intervene and say that the merits of the deal are not the subject matter for discussion at the meeting.

One member sought to know if he had sued the journalist concerned for having misused the conversation he had had with him completely off-the-record. To this, Sen reportedly said he had thought of filing a suit, but had subsequently dropped the idea.

Jaitley (BJP) reminded Sen that apart from the “headless chickens” remark, he had made many comments about the quality of debates in both Houses of Parliament, the NDA, the BJP and the Left. He sought to know if Sen had made the comments attributed to him. Sen owned them up, but contended that they were off-the-record.

Story continues below this ad

CPI(M) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury cited Sen’s long experience and asked if should have made these comments, to which the envoy agreed that he should have been more circumspect.

Several members, meanwhile, when asked about the mood at the committee, were non-committal about what they will finally do. However, they were all struck by the intellectual honesty of Sen. One member said: “It is creditable that he did not deny even a single remark sourced to him, though he did contend that he was speaking off-the-record.”