Saroj Pandey justified her wordplay by quoting senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's analogy.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was called a "homely woman" and her brother and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi a "joker" by a BJP leader today. The latest remark adds to a series of sexist comments being flung at her by senior BJP leaders ever since she formally joined the Congress.

Saroj Pandey, the BJP in charge of Maharashtra and a Rajya Sabha MP, asked the Congress if it couldn't find a woman worker in so many years who could be a General Secretary?

"What they found is a homely woman from the Gandhi family," she said.

Her party colleagues have already used terms like "chocolatey", "beautiful face" and a "bacchi (child)" to describe Priyanka Gandhi.

Ms Pandey also took a swipe at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi with a card game reference by asking whether the latter was a "joker" if his sister Priyanka Gandhi was the opposition party's "trump card".

"They call her an ace, so this means they were playing with a joker till now," she said in a mocking tone.

The BJP leader justified her wordplay by quoting senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad's analogy. Mr Azad had termed Priyanka Gandhi's appointment as a "trump card" move.

"It is not that we are calling him (Rahul Gandhi) joker, but their own leaders have certified that tag. Why are we being criticised for calling him pappu. Had the party (Congress) played its trump card earlier, this joker would not have wasted so much time of the country," she said at a convention of Maharashtra BJP in Jalna.

Rahul Gandhi says he and his sister believe in giving space to each other.

Priyanka Gandhi Vadra -- Rahul Gandhi's sister who has had a contributory position in the party's key decisions till now -- will be the Congress general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh. She will officially take charge next week.

Soon after the announcement Vinod Narayan Jha, a BJP leader, had said that Priyanka Gandhi was just a pretty face with no political achievement.

"Priyanka Gandhi is very beautiful, but has no other talent that I can see, neither does she have the political experience," Mr Jha said.

Then he attacked her for having "no political achievement" to talk about in all these years. "She must be what, 37-38, or maybe older, 44. Till this age, she has no political achievement. Yes, she is good-looking, God has given her that. But how much can she exploit that," the minister said.

The next barb came from senior BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya, for whom Priyanka Gandhi was just a "chocolatey face".

"The Congress does not have strong leaders to field in the next Lok Sabha elections. That is why they want to contest the coming elections by banking on chocolatey faces. Somebody takes Kareena Kapoor's name while others ask for Salman Khan. Now they have brought in Priyanka Gandhi," he said.

After huge backlash, he tried to blame the media for misconstruing his remark and said he used the term for Bollywood actors, not any political leader.

Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi, another senior BJP leader, said the Congress was feeling happy over the induction of a "woman with a tainted life partner" and claimed that Priyanka Gandhi's resemblance with her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi won't help her much.

"Duplicates do not work in politics. Priyanka Gandhi might resemble Indira Gandhi, but there is a big difference," Mr Modi said.

He added that her businessman husband's irregular land transactions are spread across two states and he is facing investigation and her appointment would bring the alleged corruption scandals against Robert Vadra on to the "centre stage", which would only benefit the NDA.