Manmohan Singh: Modi's 5 yrs 'most traumatic, devastating', should be shown exit door

Summing up the five-year tenure of the NDA regime as a sad story of governance and accountability failure, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday said Narendra Modi's rule was the most "traumatic" for India's youth, farmers and traders.

"PM Narendra Modi's rule was the most traumatic and devastating for India's youth, farmers, traders and every democratic institution," Manmohan Singh said in an interview with PTI.

With the saffron party making nationalism its main poll narrative in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, Singh said, "BJP searching for new narratives every day. This reflects bankruptcy of national security vision."

Singh further asserted that while the UPA government was open to scrutiny, PM Modi considered his government inscrutable and unaccountable to the litany of corruption charges.

"Government that doesn't believe in inclusive growth, worries about political existence at the altar of disharmony should be shown exit door," he said.

The former PM, who has in the recent past spoken out aggressively against the policies of the BJP government, also assailed PM Modi over his "slipshod policy" on Pakistan.

"Modi's slipshod policy on Pakistan was marred by a series of flip-flops — from going to Pakistan uninvited to inviting rogue ISI to Pathankot," he said.

In an apparent reference to the cases of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, Singh said, "There is definite collusion of people holding political positions and scamsters who fled the country."

While underlining the resentment among people against "illusion" and boastful "self-aggrandisement of BJP", the former PM said the Modi government had left the economy in dire straits.