Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gyan Dev Ahuja on Wednesday compared Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and his sister Priyanka Gandhi to Ramayana characters Ravana and Surpanakha. Surpanakha was the sister of the demon king in the Hindu epic.

“When Ravana was in trouble [in Ramayana], he took help from Surpanakha,” Ahuja said at a rally in Rajasthan’s Alwar, according to a video clip shared by Times Now. “When Rahul Baba got into difficulty, he hid behind his sister Priyanka.”

Priyanka Gandhi began her political journey in January, when she was appointed the Congress general secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East) ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

Ahuja, who represents Ramgarh in Alwar district in the Rajasthan Assembly, has made controversial comments in the past too. In July last year, he claimed that cow slaughter was a bigger crime than terrorism. He claimed terrorists kill “two to five people”, but slaughtering cows hurts sentiments of thousands of people. In August, Ahuja claimed that former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not a Pandit because he ate beef and pork.

In November last year, Ahuja quit the BJP after he was denied a ticket for the Rajasthan Assembly elections, and filed his nomination as an independent candidate. However, days later, the party appointed Ahuja its state vice president.