New Delhi, May 5
Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be shown the door as his five-year rule has been the “most traumatic and devastating” for India’s youths, farmers, traders and every democratic institution, his predecessor Manmohan Singh said today.
Singh, in an interview to PTI, dismissed the notion that there was a wave in favour of Modi and asserted the people had made up their mind 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 the past five years only witnessed “stench” of corruption peaking to “unimaginable proportions”, adding demonetisation was perhaps the “biggest scam” of independent India.
The former PM 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 was headed for a slowdown and he accused the Modi regime of leaving the country’s economy in “dire straits”.
In a bid to counter the BJP’s focus on nationalism and terrorism, he sought to question Modi’s commitment. He said it was “distressing” to note that Modi was “filming movies” in the Jim Corbett National Park instead of chairing any meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in the immediate aftermath of 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.
“Our socio-political ambience has lost cohesiveness. People are fed up with the daily loud rhetoric of cosmetic change. There is a sense of deep despair and disillusionment amongst the masses,” Singh 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 and will of ‘one person’ on a diverse country like India. On foreign policy, he said India has always been guided by national interests and not for “image building of any individual”. — PTI
from The Tribune http://bit.ly/2VSPQq8
via Today’s News Headlines
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