• Hello and welcome to Walk the Talk. I am Shekhar Gupta in Srinagar’s golf course in what is not exactly golfing weather. But my guest is somebody who is used to weathering many storms, he’s chosen the hottest of hot seats in Indian politics voluntarily, willingly and in fact very keenly. Ghulam Nabi Azad welcome to Walk the Talk.

Hello.

• Old friend, veteran at 57 already, and also young at 57 for Indian politics. What made you choose the warmth of Srinagar, leaving the chill of Akbar Road? I mean, the comfort and just the smugness of being in national politics... Most people come from states to national politics.

Well I’d like to say for the first time, I haven’t told anybody this secret so far. The first time, in 1986, when I was minister for food and civil supplies and we had two colleagues, ministers of state, one from Karnataka and one from West Bengal, Mr Das Munshi — they were ministers and they were also PCC presidents. So Mr Rajiv Gandhi told me that he felt that I should take over the chief ministership of Jammu and Kashmir because we were fighting Farooq Abdullah. He said you continue as minister of state here at the Centre and also become J&K PCC president, and that next year we are going for elections and you can take over chief ministership. I said pointblank, ‘I am not interested in state politics.’ A decade later, it was 1995-1996, when I was union minister for parliamentary affairs, civil aviation and tourism, late PM Narsimha Raoji — again we had governor’s rule here — insisted I should go back to J&K since elections were going to be held and take over the chief ministership of J&K. That was second time that I said flatly, ‘No I am not interested in state politics.’ So, about exactly a decade later, that is last year in 2005, I decided to come here.

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