''I would love to be President of India'': Farooq Abdullah

New Delhi, Dec 1: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah has said he would like to be the President of India but would not ''lobby or run after the post''.

''I would like to be the President when the post falls vacant...

if it was offered to me then I would love it,'' Dr Abdullah said on 'One-on-One' programme, to be telecast tomorrow, on NDTV.

Dr Abdullah said should he shift into Rashtrapati Bhawan he would like to speak his mind to the government of the day.

He claimed that there are many issues that even Dr A P J Abdul Kalam is not able to express a view on.

However, when asked what these issues were, he declined to explain.

Dr Abdullah said he was offered the post by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the time of the last presidential elections and he believed that ''he would be the NDA's candidate for the post''.

''But not only did this not happen, nobody told me.... I discovered this when the nomination of the other person was filed.

That is when I found out that I was not there,''he added.

The former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister said he did not ''campaign fully'' in the 2002 assembly elections in the state because of that reason.

''It was because I believed that I would be the next President, that I did not campaign fully in the last assembly elections in Kashmir,'' he said.

''If I had canvassed in the election, then my party would have won.... Instead, I went off to South Africa at a crucial time in the campaign,'' he added.

UNI