Maharashtra BJP taunts Rahul Gandhi, asks whether Congress president is ‘joker’ if Priyanka is Opposition's ‘trump card’

Mumbai: A senior BJP leader on Monday 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”.

Saroj Pandey, BJP in-charge for Maharashtra and Rajya Sabha MP, justified her card game wordplay by citing the statement of senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad who had termed Priyanka Gandhi’s appointment as the party’s general secretary for eastern Uttar Pradesh as a “trump card” move.

“Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad says they are now playing with a trump card. So it surely means so far they were playing with a joker,” Pandey said in Hindi. She was addressing the convention of Maharashtra BJP in Jalna.

“I cannot play cards, but you can understand (the difference between) trump card and joker,” she further said.

Clarifying her remark, Pandey said, “It is not that we are calling him (Rahul Gandhi) joker, but their own leaders have certified that tag on him. We are getting 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,” Pandey said.