RS panel makes minced meat of headless chicken

NEW DELHI: Ambassador Ronen Sen once again offered his ``unconditional apology’’ for the ``headless chicken’’ remarks aimed at the critics of the nuclear deal, but not before he was savaged by the members of Rajya Sabha privileges committee for his intemperate remarks.

Unlike the privileges committee attached to the Lok Sabha, from where he emerged relatively unscathed, Mr Sen was hauled up by Rajya Sabha members who were particularly angry with him for targeting some of their colleagues. The Indian ambassador in Washington, it may be mentioned, had made certain uncharitable observations against BJP vice-president Yashwant Sinha.

Mr Sinha is not only a member of the Upper House, but also served as the external affairs minister during the Vajpayee regime. Mr Sen was then a serving IFS official. He was the ambassador to Germany at that point of time.

The privileges committee, which lasted some 50 minutes, began with Mr Sen reading out from a prepared text, in which he first gave a detailed account of his ``illustrious’’ career-graph, which had seen handling important assignments both within and outside the country. Having said this, he owned up the ``indiscretion’’ committed by him in the form of the interview which eventually found its way in a newspaper. He said that he had agreed to do the interview ``in one of those moments,’’ and apologised for his remarks.

His pleadings, however, failed to mollify BJP MPs represented by former Union ministers Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad and S Ahluwalia, Samajwadi Party’s Shahid Siddiqui and even the CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, who took him to task for his utterances.

``The differences between proceedings in the two House committee meetings is that you singled out for attack members belonging to the Rajya Sabha. One of them happened to be your minister. How do you account for your behaviour ?’’ Mr Prasad is learnt to have asked.

BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley found it strange that a person who had held several important assignments throughout his career could have made such offensive remarks, which were specifically directed at critics of the Indo-US nuclear deal, including those belonging to the NDA, UNPA and Left. ``Was it a conscious act ?’’ he wanted to know. Mr Jaitley’s argument was supported by Mr Yechury.

The diplomat, it is learnt, had no answer to these queries, and offered an ``unconditional apology’’ for his remarks to the committee, which had a near full house.The committee will meet again on November 16 to finalise its report, but it is expected that Mr Sen will be let off with a reprimand.