Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that his party does not need anyone who wants to leave, adding that they can “go to RSS [Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh]”, reported The Hindu.

“There are many people who are not scared, but are outside the Congress. All these people are ours,” he said. “Bring them in, and those scared within our party should be shunted out. They can go to RSS people, let them enjoy. We do not want them, they are not needed. We want fearless people. This is our ideology. This is my basic message to you.”

He was virtually addressing a meeting of social media workers in the Congress. The Congress leader urged them to not be afraid of speaking to him. “You are talking to your brother and you should not be scared,” he said, reported PTI. “You should not be scared and you will never see me being afraid.”

Gandhi cited the example of former Congress leader and current Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who quit the party in March 2020 to join the Bharatiya Janata Party. “He had to save his house and he got scared and he joined the RSS,” Gandhi added.

Several senior Congress leaders have quit the party to join the BJP. Congress leader Jitin Prasada joined the BJP in June. Tom Vadakkan, Rita Bahuguna Joshi and Khushboo Sundar are some of the other popular faces who have joined the BJP after leaving the Congress in the last few years.

The Congress has been dealing with an internal crisis for months, which was triggered after at least 23 party leaders wrote to Sonia Gandhi demanding a complete overhaul of the organisation. The letter, which was written on August 15, urged Sonia Gandhi to address the leadership question in the party and claimed the uncertainty around it “has demoralised party workers and weakened the institution”.

The signatories of the letter included former chief ministers such as Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Prithviraj Chavan, former ministers Shashi Tharoor, and Milind Deora and Jitin Prasada.