Sen told rediff India Abroad, "No, no, I have not made up my mind as yet. If I go back it won't be in July, it will be in August. But I have still not decided."
He described the rumors as "speculative," and quipped, "Delhi is a place of rumors."
"But very frankly," he reiterated, "I have not made up my mind."
Sen also dismissed reports that it's health grounds that's making him stay in Washington and the reason that he had earlier declined the position of National Security Adviser offered him after the sudden death of J N Dixit as that would have interrupted the medical treatment he is receiving in the US.
He asserted that "health-wise, I am fine," and described reports of his ill-health and medical problems as "completely false."
Sen said that he would not be able to maintain his rigorous schedule of 16-18 hour days and constant travel across the US espousing the message of the blossoming US-India strategic partnership, if he were beset by all of these health issues that he is rumored to have.
He acknowledged, "I get up a little late -- 8.30 am or thereabouts, but I don't go to sleep till about 2 in the morning," of the next day.
Even before the appointment of Dixit as National Security Adviser, informed sources told rediff India Abroad, that immediately upon the advent of the Manmohan Singh government, Sen -- who has a close relationship with both the Prime Minister and Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi going back several years -- had been offered the National Security Adviser position, which he had declined, before accepting the ambassadorship to Washington a few months later.
After Dixit's untimely demise, he had been offered his post once again, but he had opted to stay in Washington, but this time around, some sources say that when his two-year term expires in the first week of August, he may decide to go back in the Prime Minister requests for his assistance as a senior foreign policy adviser in the PMO.
Diplomatic sources acknowledged that if Sen decides to return to Delhi in August, it would be almost "a no-brainer" that he would be succeeded by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, who retires on September 30, 2006, after serving out one of the longest tenures of a foreign secretary in recent years.
Both these, and Administration sources agreed "it only makes eminent sense" to have someone like Saran in Washington, "so that there can be continuity" not just in terms of the pending consummation of the US-India civilian nuclear agreement, "but the whole relationship as a whole" whether it be the strategic component or other facets such as economic and trade and commercial ties.
They noted that "he knows all of the major players here" in both the Administration and the Congress, "...and he's met with the key chairmen of the foreign policy committees," like Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Congressman Henry Hyde of the International Relations Committee, "He has this superb equation with not just (his diplomatic vis-à-vis and the chief US negotiator of the nuclear deal, Under Secretary of State) Nick Burns but with (Secretary of State) Condi (Condoleezza Rice) herself, and so he would be the ideal choice."
The sources said, if the consummation of the deal gets delayed in Congress, and also if there's a change in the leadership in the House and the Senate following the November Congressional elections -- where Democrats are favored to take back the House after more than 12 years "...you would need someone like him (Saran) who knows the leadership and the players on both sides of the aisle, to make sure that this agreement does not fall by the wayside, and if necessary work with the Administration to get the legislation re-introduced in a new Congress."
