Sen eats his 'headless chicken', says sorry to LS

New Delhi: The Indian Ambassador to US, Ronen Sen, extended an unqualified apology before the Privilege Committee of Lok Sabha on Monday for his ‘headless chicken’ remark.

Sources told CNN-IBN that Sen apologised to the panel, saying his comment was not meant to show disrespect to the august House. "I did not mean disrespect to anyone. I make these comments even at home when I have guests over at home and my wife keeps running around.”

Explaining his reported remark, Sen said: “I was not giving any interview to anyone and the remark was made during a casual conversation with the Rediff reporter."

"In my personal capacity, I keep making these comments and they are not for public or official consumption," he is said to have told the House panel.

Sources said the panel is likely to accept his apology and decide that no further action is needed. However, Committee Chairman V Kishorchandra Deo declined to say anything except that he would submit a report to the House.

Varkala Radhakrihnan (CPI-M) quizzed Sen, asking him why

he made such remarks. Sen reportedly told the committee that it was not an interview, but a mobile phone conversation and that too was off the record.

This is perhaps for the first time in Parliamentary history that a top diplomat appeared before the law makers for making controversial remarks that created a furore in both the Houses of Parliament during the monsoon session.

The House Panel summoned the US envoy for allegedly calling the critics of the nuclear deal 'headless chicken.'

"The deal has 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?" Sen was quoted as having said in an interview in August this year.

Sen later apologised for the remark, saying it was meant for journalists. But the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman both referred the matter to the privileges committees. Sen will appear before the Rajya Sabha panel on November 2.

He is also likely to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the status of the nuclear deal. Sen is the first diplomat to be summoned by Parliament's privileges committees.