By IANS
New Delhi : The government has stepped up a search for a successor to Ronen Sen, India’s ambassador to the US and a key interlocutor for the India-US nuclear deal who is likely to return home from Washington after his term ends March 31.
Shyam Saran, Prime Minister’s Special envoy on the nuclear deal and a former foreign secretary, is seen as a front-runner for the important post.
Navtej Sarna, spokesperson of the external affairs ministry, refused to confirm or deny reports of Sen wanting to step down after his term expires. “No comments,” was all he would say.
The name of Meera Shankar, India’s ambassador to Germany, is also mentioned in diplomatic circles as a hopeful for the coveted post.
But given the recent trend of appointing career diplomats to key world capitals in place of political appointees, it is possible that the next envoy may as well be a serving diplomat.
The government has, however, not made up its mind. With the future of the nuclear deal looking increasingly uncertain, one thing is, however, clear: the successor to Sen will have a tough diplomatic brief as he will go to Washington at a time when the deal is caught in the cleft of coalition politics in India.
Sen was at one time speculated to join the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) after his Washington tenure. He is known to be close to Congress president and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi as he had served for long in the PMO during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure in the 1980s.