By IANS
New Delhi : The Lok Sabha privileges committee is expected to accept Friday the apology from India’s envoy to the US Ronen Sen, who angered MPs with his “headless chicken” remark while discussing the Indo-US nuclear deal.
But the committee may stress for a review of the directive on how Indian diplomats should conduct themselves.
According to informed sources, the committee headed by Congress MP V. Kishore Chandra Deo has accepted Sen’s plea that his controversial remarks were part of an “off-the-record” conversation with a US-based journalist and not a “formal interview”.
The committee also took the view that Sen might not had MPs or parliament in mind when he used the “headless chicken” expression.
“But the committee was of the view that the envoy should not have used such words even in an informal conversation. There is a need to have a review of the directives to the diplomats,” a source told IANS.
Sen had extended “unconditional apology” to the committee when he appeared before it here Oct 29. He
was the first diplomat to appear before parliament’s privileges panels.
At a time when MPs were debating the nuclear deal in parliament in August, Sen was quoted as saying: “Why do you have all this running around like headless chicken, looking for a comment here or comment there, and these little storms in a tea cup?”
The remarks infuriated MPs from both the opposition and the government’s communist allies. Sen later said that he was misquoted and his remarks referred not to politicians, but to journalists.
The matter will come up in the Rajya Sabha privilege committee, which is meeting Monday. When he appeared before the Rajya Sabha panel Nov 2, he has reportedly told that his remarks were an “act of indiscretion”.