Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be shown the exit door, as his five-year rule has been the “most traumatic and devastating” for India’s youths, farmers, traders and democratic institutions, said his predecessor Manmohan Singh on Sunday.

‘No Modi wave’

Singh dismissed the notion that there was a wave in favour of Modi, and asserted that the people have made up their minds to vote out the government that “does not believe in inclusive growth, and is only worried about its political existence at the altar of disharmony”.

In one of his most fierce attacks on the Modi dispensation, Singh alleged that the past five years only witnessed the “stench” of corruption peaking to “unimaginable proportions”, adding that demonetisation was perhaps the “biggest scam” of independent India.

Incidentally, the BJP campaign in the run-up to the 2014 elections, had centred on various alleged scams, including the allocations of 2G spectrum and coal blocks, during the 10-year tenure of the Singh-led UPA government.

The former prime minister also called Modi’s Pakistan policy “slipshod”, which he said was marred by a series of “flip-flops” – from going to Pakistan uninvited to inviting rogue ISI to the Pathankot air base in connection with the probe into a terrorist attack.

Singh, known as the architect of India’s economic reforms in 1990s, felt the country is headed for a slowdown, and accused the Modi regime of leaving the country’s economy in “dire straits”.

He said people are fed up with the daily rhetoric and cosmetic change by the current dispensation, and that there is an undercurrent against this “illusion and boastful self aggrandizement”.

In a bid to counter the BJP’s focus on the issues of nationalism and terrorism, the former Prime Minister sought to question Modi’s commitment.

Terror attacks

He said it was distressing to note that Modi was filming movies at the Jim Corbett National Park instead of chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) following the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

He claimed the “gross intelligence failure” in Pulwama speaks volumes about this government’s preparedness to tackle terror.

Singh said the Modi government’s record on national security is dismal, as incidents of terrorism have seen a quantum jump.

“A lie spoken a hundred times does not become the truth,” he said on Modi’s plank of nationalism, adding that terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir alone have gone up by 176 per cent, and ceasefire violations at the border with Pakistan up 1,000 per cent in the past five years.

He said that division and hate have become synonymous with the BJP, and it thrives on societal fissures.

“A government which does not believe in inclusive growth and is only worried about its political existence at the altar of disharmony should be immediately shown the exit door,” he noted.”

“Five years of Modi government is a sad story of governance and accountability failure. In2014, Modiji came to power on the promise of ‘acche din’. His five-year rule has ended up being the most traumatic and devastating for India’s youth, farmers, traders, businesses and every democratic institution,” he said.

The former Prime Minister said one man would not do any justice to the aspirations and hopes of the people by imposing the thought process on a diverse country like India.

“Representation in India is very important. A single man can neither represent all the desires of 130-crore people of India, and can also not solve the variety of problems faced by them. The idea of ‘one man as the monolith of knowledge’ cannot be applied to India,” he said on whether a presidential form of election is good for democracy.

On foreign policy, he said India has always been guided by national interests, and not for “image building of any individual”.

 

 

 

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