Getting hold of Bhaichung Bhutia in World Cup season is not easy. One moment you see him on television, commentating, the next moment he's meeting football fans or dictating his World Cup match forecast or getting in and out of meetings to plan summer camp activities for the Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools. But India's most famous former footballer - he retired in 2011 - has a new goal, quite removed from the game.

Last month, the 41-year old soccer star launched his political party, Hamro Sikkim Party (HSP), with the resolve to motivate young people to join politics. He says, "I want to clean up the political mess created by Pawan Kumar Chamling's autocratic regime."

Chamling is the longest serving chief minister of an Indian state; he recently broke the record of West Bengal's Jyoti Basu. He claims to have transformed Sikkim from a poor backward state to a progressive one, earmarked 70 per cent of the state budget for rural development to alleviate poverty. When I repeat this to Bhutia his tone changes. "Everything is in a shambles in my beautiful state. Even though it looks so peaceful and serene on the surface, people have been suffering immensely for the last few decades," he says, his pitch rising. He continues, "The younger generations in Sikkim are sick of this regime, which has turned into a dictatorial front from a democratic front [Chamling's party is the Sikkim Democratic Front]. It has failed to provide basic amenities - power, drinking water, roads. It is a shame that they make the ambitious claim of having turned Sikkim into the first so-called organic state of India."

The next few minutes there is no stopping Bhutia. He continues to talk about the "corrupt regime", the scams to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore, the frequent power cuts notwithstanding the 30-plus operational hydel power projects, the pharmaceutical factories spewing poisonous chemicals into Sikkim's water bodies. He says, "The dream that was sold to the people was that these companies would provide jobs to local people. But that hasn't happened. They have imported skilled labour from outside the state. Our youth have been left jobless."

He points out that the past two decades have yielded scams aplenty, yet no inquiry or investigation is allowed against the government. "He [Chamling] has skilfully prevented the Central Bureau of Investigation from taking up corruption cases in the state."

Bhutia, also known as the "Sikkimese Sniper" for his legendary shooting skills at some point, made an all-out attack on Chamling earlier this month when he formally inaugurated his party at West Sikkim's Daramdin, a Sikkim Democratic Front stronghold. It was from here that Chamling launched his party in 1993.

There is no getting away from the Chamling references or politics. I start to bring up the ongoing World Cup a couple of times but realise that I am talking to a man whose priorities are vastly altered. We are back to the topic of Chamling. Bhutia's biggest grouse against him is that he has stifled the political system in the state. He says, "There is no young leader in the state and virtually no strong leader to challenge him. The youth are disenchanted and they avoid politics. I want to infuse fresh blood into the system."

According to him, while the government paints a rosy picture of the state to the outside world, the unemployment rate is appalling. He adds, "Sikkim also has one of the highest suicide rates in the country."

The press note released during the April 26 launch announcement of HSP in New Delhi reads: "North Korea also projects itself to be a paradise - that is how dictators function, the rotten inside is always hidden. There is widespread alcoholism and drug abuse. The government hides data - it's shocking but 7 out of 10 teenagers in Sikkim abuse pharmaceutical drugs. One in every family is involved in substance abuse. The youth are dying and the future looks bleak."

Chamling, a veteran politician, brushed aside Bhutia's charges and taunted Hamro Sikkim as a "football party" and Bhutia as an "outsider". He did not omit to point out that Bhutia had mostly played for Calcutta clubs on hire and has never helped any Sikkimese play for these clubs. At a public rally, he went so far as to say, "New Delhi has hired him to play against the Sikkim government."

To being called an outsider, Bhutia says is nothing but mischief - he is of Sikkimese origin and also grew up in the state. As for the bit about playing for money, he chortles that the CM knows nothing about professional sports. "He does not know that all footballers, including Argentina's Lionel Messi and India's Sunil Chhetri, play for big clubs for a fee. He also doesn't know that I used to run the club, United Sikkim FC, and sent many players to big clubs outside Sikkim for trials." As for the allegation about having been hired by New Delhi, he says, "It is Chamling's party that is an ally of the NDA."

Bhutia is not new to leadership or games. In his 16-year-long international career, he has played for some of the top football clubs of India and Europe. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bhutia, who is a Buddhist, boycotted the Olympic torch relay in support of the Tibetan independence movement. Such was his popularity that in 2009 he won the third season of the reality television dance show, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa. He held the distinction of being the only Indian to have donned the country's colours in a record 107 matches and of being the highest goal-scorer with 42 goals, until he was surpassed by Chhetri on both counts. "Yes," says Bhaichung, "I am happy that Sunil has broken the record. He has worked so hard."

Even as a politician, Bhutia is not a novice. He had joined the Trinamul Congress in 2013 and contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Darjeeling. He lost to the BJP candidate, S.S. Ahluwalia, by a huge margin. In 2016, he was again fielded against CPI(M) heavyweight Ashok Bhattacharya from the Siliguri Assembly seat. He lost by 14,000 votes. Later that year, he went against the party stand on the Gorkhaland issue and, in February 2018, he quit the TMC.

"I learnt what not to do as a politician. I was dropped from the top as a star. As a rank outsider and a guest, I was barely committed. I never worked at the grassroots level," he tells me. It is apparent from his tone that he is intent on not repeating those mistakes.

He explains the party structure. He will be the vice-president of the party and it will be run by an executive board so that no one person can control it ever. The board will choose someone respectable with a good track record as president. Also, the plan is to fix the tenure of a legislator and even the chief ministerial candidate to a maximum of two terms.

In the past two months, he has travelled extensively across Sikkim. "In the next nine months before the 2019 elections, we will be able to reach out to the entire state and eventually field candidates in all 32 Assembly seats."

At this stage, the party has no plans to form an alliance with any national party. Bhutia merely wants to build his outfit and movement from scratch. What if he ever gets to be the country's sports minister? Can he make India's World Cup dream a reality? He says, "We must not even think on those lines. First, we need to build a culture of football in this cricket-crazy nation. You need to have the right policy for sports and hunt for the right talent. And even after all that, the first target should be the Asian Cup. World Cup qualification is a far-fetched goal to have."