Q: When you say you sometimes miss less stressed days in Delhi, what do you mean?
A: When you take both the jobs I've handled in Delhi, at the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of External Affairs, it is about the best beginning one could have in this sort of life. They gave me the opportunity to travel, meet people, speak out, things that I like.
Now, it's a different ballgame. It's the hurly burly of electoral politics.

Q: Have you directly chosen candidates?
A: Well I'm on the party's parliamentary board and I'm trying as far as possible to see that we pick the right person.

Q: Do you see these elections as more participatory?
A: Definitely. There are a huge number of candidates. And there are some curious candidates who have gone and filed their nominations and then come out and said, "Hamein kya chahiye? Azadi (What do we want? Freedom)." These have been from the People's Conference candidates or renegade candidates, however you want to look at the elections, you have the Congress and the PDP with some sort of a tacit electoral understanding. You have the NC. And you have parties that nobody really knows here but they are still spending their money and coming forward, like the Lok Shakti, Jan Shakti and so on.

It shows there is a thriving democracy, anybody seems to be able to get two or three busloads of people, and it shows that people are really interested in the democratic process. If there wasn't a response from the public most of these candidates wouldn't have come forward.

Q: You say frequently that it's more of a challenge for the NC this time around. Why?
A: Well, I think the challenge stems from the fact that ... let's face it, you have to deal with a anti-incumbency factor for one, you have to deal with the fact that there were huge expectations from the government in 1996—there's no way any government could live up to that level of expectation. So on the ground, people feel that perhaps we should have done more than we did. That being said, a lot more has happened in the past six years than most of us expected.

We also face a curious situation that the NC has never seen, but I think it is perhaps because of a party that has been in government for a little too long. That is, people begin to feel they are above the party. The moment they are denied a ticket they feel they are in a position to damage the party's interest. Up until this election, every time someone was denied a ticket he was quite happy to work with the party and see if there was another way for them to be accommodated. But this time, you have cases of aspirants who may not have 500 people with them but the moment the NC denies them a ticket they are quite happy to hop across to another party.

Q: How are you addressing this?
A: It's a fact of life we have to come to terms with. It's not a situation that we're going to be able to control. It's come to stay.

A reason may be that we have been quite liberal with allowing people back into the NC after they have left us. People are under the impression that they can go out, cause us a degree of damage, perhaps lose their seat and then six months down the line say, "We're really sorry but we want to come back." As party president that is something I am going to discourage. If you're out, stay out, find some other party. If you think you're above the party at a crucial time like this-and I wasn't exaggerating, this is a tougher election than 1977.

Q: Why?
A: In 1977 you weren't facing the threat of violence. And secondly, you had the towering figure of Sheikh Abdullah-I haven't even remotely achieved his level of standing in the party and in the society at large. And we also have the complications and compulsions brought on the by leadership change in the party two months before the elections.

Q: But wasn't that a wise move? To bring new energy into a party that has been seen as losing its sheen?
A: It's too early to comment on that, whether the leadership change will benefit us or not only the results of these elections will show. We'll just have to wait and see how this one plays out.

The decision of my father to leave has been an extremely unpopular one in almost all sections of the NC. A system as old as the NC obviously resists change, if for no other reason than that is the very nature of things.

Q: What is your take on the security issue, the threat of militancy, on the tensions along the border?
A: One thing I've been trying to make very clear in the election rallies I have been addressing is that this election is not about an end to tension between India and Pakistan. This election is about the sort of government the people of J&K want in the next six years. Violence in J&K is an issue that even the Government of India on its own can't address; it's primarily between Delhi and Islamabad. To the extent that we can provide a government that creates conditions to ensure that not a single person exfiltrates from here, and the only violence you have is violence from non-Kashmiris—to that extent yes, these elections will clarifiy?

Q: I'm talking about the allegations that have been made against the SOG (Special Operations Group) and the STF (Special Task Force).
A:The fact is that the SOG has had some spectacular successes against terrorists and it has worked very well with other security agencies. But my problem is that even if eight out of 10 allegations are unfounded, those two are two too many. Because in any democratic set-up—any set-up—the law enforcement agencies are there to protect the rights of people. The moment they over-step the line is when you start having problems.

I don't think the problem is with the SOG or STF, but with the way the organisation has grown, to become something it was never envisaged as. The SOG was never meant to be a stand-alone counter-insurgency force. The way I understand it was supposed to be a crack unit attached to individual police stations as a rapid reaction force that would move in, take control of the situation till the rest of the forces moved in. They were to be like a SWAT team.

Now, they have become a stand-alone unit practically accountable only to themselves. And that is where we have a problem.

Q: You're talking here of a mature political establishment. It's not the way Kashmir has generally been, not the sort of language that has generally been associated with leadership in this state.
A: Therein lies the difference. I have never been able to confine myself to one particular region or one particular group. I am offering a government that will not seek to discriminate between regions or religions or various groups of people. I want to offer a clean, open government not just to the people of Kashmir but also to the people of Jammu, Kargil and Leh.

What do people want? They want educated representatives, those who will talk for them in the assembly, address concerns with regard to development and unemployment, and corruption.

Q:These are good things. So if you're offering this, why is there a resentment? Is it directed against the family that you belong to?
A: And then the cynicism will set in.

Q: Well, you're still a little wide-eyed ...
A: Hmmm. Nothing I am offering is out of the ordinary. I'm not saying violence and all of J&K's problems will end. I'm offering realistic things. What is unrealistic about putting into place information technology? It would be if I was offering a computer in every house. I am offering things that I have really thought about long and heard and what I truly believe is achievable.

It will take time. The work culture won't change overnight. We've become lazy, we've got used to eating for free. We don't want to pay taxes, we don't want to pay electricity bills. Fine, but over time one will have to chip away at this. The more money I have, the more money I will have to plough back into the system.

Q: You father doesn't talk like this. You seem more clinical.
A: In that respect I am very different from my father. I say as much to people as well. I am not given to long speeches and stories and humour—okay, once in a while an element of humour will creep into a speech, but it's not pre-planned. I like to get on with things.