INDIA’S Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh announced on Friday (January 3) that he will step down after elections this year, and said the next generation of the Gandhi dynasty should replace him if the ruling Congress party wins an unlikely third term.
Singh also mounted his strongest attack yet on opposition leader Narendra Modi, who has been making gains in the polls despite his links to deadly religious riots in Gujarat in 2002.
“In a few months’ time after the general elections, I will hand over the baton to a new prime minister,” Singh said at a rare press conference that confirmed his imminent retirement after more than nine years in power.
The 81-year-old had already hinted strongly at his intention to make way for leader-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi, the scion of the Gandhi family dynasty which has dominated India’s government since independence.
Singh said that the Congress party would declare its prime ministerial candidate in due course, with commentators speculating that an announcement could come at a meeting on January 17.
“Rahul Gandhi has outstanding credentials. I hope our party will take that decision at an appropriate time,” added the two-term prime minister, democratic India’s third-longest leader.
Polls show Congress trailing badly ahead of the world’s biggest election, due by May this year, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Modi’s leadership gathering momentum.
“It would be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as prime minister,” Singh said.
Referring to Modi’s reputation for decisive leadership, Singh said that political strength was not demonstrated “by presiding over the massacre of innocent citizens in Ahmedabad”, the largest commercial city in Gujarat.
As many as 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed during religious riots in 2002 in Gujarat shortly after Modi came to power as chief minister of the economically successful state.
The 64-year-old Modi, who rose through grassroots Hindu organisations, has long been accused of doing too little to stop the violence. Several investigations have cleared him of any personal involvement.
A woman who he later appointed as a state minister was sentenced to 28 years in jail in 2012 for instigating the carnage.
During his time as prime minister, Singh has seen his formerly stellar reputation based on his work as a reforming finance minister in the 1990s tarnished by a string of corruption scandals and slowing economic growth.
He mounted a defence of his legacy, regretting high inflation, the graft scandals and weak growth in manufacturing output, but hailing his government’s work for the rural poor and farmers.
