Indian PM Manmohan Singh anoints Rahul Gandhi as successor "Socially inclusive": Manmohan Singh defended his government's economic record. Delhi: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced on Friday that he would step down after elections this year, and said the next generation of the Gandhi dynasty should replace him if the ruling Congress party won an unlikely third term. Dr 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 western Gujarat state in 2002. "In a few months' time after the general elections, I will hand over the baton to a new prime minister," Dr 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 dynasty, which has dominated India's government since independence. Dr 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," he said. Polls show Congress trailing badly before the world's biggest election, due by May this year, with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Mr Modi's leadership gathering momentum. "It would be disastrous for the country to have Narendra Modi as prime minister," Dr Singh said. Referring to Mr Modi's reputation for decisive leadership, Dr Singh said that political strength was not demonstrated "by presiding over the massacre of innocent citizens in Ahmedabad," the largest commercial city in Gujarat state. As many as 2000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed during religious riots in 2002 in Gujarat shortly after Mr Modi came to power as chief minister. The 64-year-old Mr 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 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, Dr 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. It is not just the acceleration of growth that gives me satisfaction. Equally important is that we made the growth process more socially inclusive than it has ever been," he said. Mr Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather were all prime ministers of India, has shunned several invitations to join the government and remains only intermittently in the spotlight. The media-shy bachelor accepted the position of No. 2 in the party in January last year - second only to his mother, Sonia - raising hopes he would play a larger public role in setting policy and priorities. His popularity among the electorate also remains in doubt, with Congress suffering a string of severe state election defeats in the final months of 2013 despite him being projected as the party's new face. The BJP said that Dr Singh had ignored "the real issues affecting the common man," which it named as corruption, inflation that has often been in double figures, and dismal economic growth. "His statement on Narendra Modi clearly reflects the party's depression over his popularity across India," BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said. Asked for his best memory, Dr Singh named striking a landmark atomic energy deal with the United States in 2005 that ended India's 30 years of isolation over its disputed nuclear program.