Modi's 5 years 'most traumatic, devastating': Manmohan Singh

New Delhi, May 05: Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday warned that India's economy is headed for a slowdown and that the Narendra Modi government is leaving it in dire straits.

"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.

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

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.

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.

The former prime minister 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.

OneIndia News (With PTI inputs)