Rahul Gandhi pauses his speech briefly during 'azaan' in Amethi

Rahul Gandhi

Amethi (Uttar Pradesh): Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday paused his speech briefly on hearing the 'azaan', the Islamic call for prayer from a nearby mosque in Amethi.

The Congress president was addressing a rally here when the sound of the 'azaan' was heard and he halted his speech and waited till the prayer call stopped to resume his speech in a few minutes.

Traditionally, Azaan is called out five times in a day by a muezzin, who summons the faithful for mandatory worship.

While addressing an election rally here, Rahul demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the people of the country for "doing nothing" in the last five years.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi is giving a lot of speeches but he is not talking about the promises he made to people, be it giving Rs 15 lakh or giving employment to the youth. The country wants to know why Narendra Modi did not fulfil his promises in the last five years," Gandhi said while talking to reporters here.

"PM Narendra Modi should apologise to the country for doing nothing in the last five years," he added. He accused Prime Minister of taking away several developmental projects from Amethi and Raibareli.

"Chowkidar ji has snatched a lot of things from Amethi and Raibareli. He took away IIIT, food park. We had planned to make Amethi an agricultural centre, Narendra Modiji broke that dream," the Congress president said.

Reiterating his challenge for a debate with PM Modi, Gandhi said, "Prime Minister should say: I (PM Modi) gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani, did a scam in Rafale deal, action is going to be initiated against me (PM Modi). The truth is as soon as Congress will come to power, the truth of Rafale will come out."

"Prime Minister has the opportunity to accept before the country that he has made a mistake but he cannot escape from the truth," he added.

Asked why he is only targeting the Prime Minister and not the Union Ministers, Rahul said, "Ministers in the government are irrelevant. Whether it is Arun Jaitley or Sushma Swaraj, they have been humiliated. Only one man is running the country for the last five years, so we are seeking answers from him," he said.

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