PM Modi halts speech midway for Azaan at BJP headquarters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday halted his speech to party workers mid way for Azaan, Muslim call for prayer.

The prime minister was addressing BJP workers at party headquarters in the national capital after the party's significant performance in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland Assembly elections 2018.

Soon after PM Modi started his speech, a call for the evening Namaaz was made from a nearby mosque. On hearing Azaan, PM Modi took a pause and decided to continue the speech after the prayer call.

PM Modi launched a scathing attack on the politics of the Left. He said the Northeast would show the way to the rest of the country when it comes to development.

Modi's statement comes hours after the decisively wrested Tripura from the Left, which had ruled the state for 25 years.

Addressing party workers following the announcement of results of polls in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Modi also took an apparent dig at Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying some people grow in designation but shrink in stature.

In contrast, he said, BJP chief Amit Shah rose by leading the party to victories in many states. In remarks laced with sarcasm, Modi said he had recently told Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy that the Congress leader was lucky as he will soon become a "specimen of a Congress chief minister" as his party will be in power only in his state by June after losing Karnataka, which goes to the polls in April-May.

Referring to Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who heads the Congress government in the state, he said neither he nor they (Congress) consider each other their own. "He is a 'swatantra fauji' (independent soldier)," Modi said of Singh.

PM paid respects along with the audience to deceased party workers, allegedly victims of political violence, by keeping silence for a while.

He was felicitated by senior party functionaries, including members of the BJP parliamentary board, headed by Shah.

OneIndia News