• Hello, and welcome to Walk the Talk. I’m Shekhar Gupta, in London’s Hyde Park, and my guest this week is perhaps the world’s most prominent political exile — not just the most prominent, but perhaps the most politically active, and the most cheerful — Mr Nawaz Sharif, former prime minister of Pakistan. Welcome to Walk the Talk.

Thank you, for your very kind words. We have met after a long time.

• How does the picture look to you back home in Pakistan?

That’s very disturbing. Pakistan, unfortunately, is not in good hands. It’s not in good shape. Musharraf is mishandling Pakistan. And one by one, he is hitting at the very roots of the country. For example, he subverted the Constitution, abrogated the Constitution, and staged a coup against my government, which was a democratically elected government with two-thirds majority. It was the first time in the history of Pakistan that any single party got a two-thirds vote in the Parliament.

• But he (Gen Musharraf) says it was so corrupt that the people of Pakistan were happy that he got rid of it.

There’s no evidence of any corruption against my government or against me. Look here, now the Chief Justice of Pakistan, who has been suspended and removed by Mr Musharraf unconstitutionally, gave a verdict against this government saying, ‘We smell corruption in this transaction.’ And then Transparency International said that Pakistan is one of the prominent countries that have a very high corruption rate. So these two are very glaring examples of corruption that is rampant today in Pakistan. So if he says that (my government was corrupt) he is absolutely wrong.

... contd.