Both Houses in Parliament were adjourned for the day with virtually no business being conducted after an uproar by both the Opposition and Left MPs over India’s Ambassador to the US Ronen Sen’s interview to Rediff India Abroad on the nuclear deal in which he used the phrase “headless chicken” which the MPs said was directed at them.

Commenting on the stalemate in Delhi, Sen was quoted as having said: “If you really look at it (the 123 Agreement), every single (concern) has been met...What is in the agreement which they are not satisfied with?”

“It has been approved here (in Washington) by the President, and there (in New Delhi) it’s been approved by the Indian Cabinet. So 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?...I can understand (such a debate) immediately after independence...but 60 years after Independence! I am really bothered that 60 years after Independence, they are so insecure — that we have not grown up, this lack of confidence and lack of self-respect,” Sen was quoted as having said.

Such quotes angered the MPs who called it “derogatory,” with BJP leader Vijay Kumar Malhotra saying his party has moved a privilege motion against Sen and that the envoy should be recalled.

Sen clarified later in the afternoon in a statement read out by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee that the “comment about running round like headless chicken looking for a comment here or a comment there was a tactless observation on some of my media friends and most certainly not with reference to any honourable Member of Parliament.”

... contd.