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Congress leader Prasada's death: A deathblow to Indian opposition

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January 17, 2001 

NEW DELHI-- (AP) - The death of senior Congress party leader Jitendra Prasada on Tuesday deals a blow to India's main opposition party, already riven by dissidence and growing marginalization in the country's political arena.

Prasada, 62, died early Tuesday at a New Delhi hospital after he suffered a brain hemorrhage a week ago.

Prasada, who for decades was seen as the quintessential party loyalist, surprised friends and supporters when he challenged Italian-born Congress party president Sonia Gandhi to a contest in November for the party's top post.

As expected he fared poorly. Gandhi won 7,448 of a possible 7,542 votes, trouncing Prasada, who could garner only 94 ballots.

But the banner of revolt had been raised, and although Gandhi and her former rival soon made peace, it was an uneasy truce. Prasada continued to be a member of the Congress party's top decision-making body.

Prasada, began his political career in the late sixties as a Congress party activist in his home state, Uttar Pradesh in northern India. In 1971 he was appointed chief of the Congress party's U.P. unit, an important post in the country's biggest state which also tends to dominate Indian politics. Eight of India's former prime ministers have hailed from U.P.

As a senior leader of the party when the Congress was in ascendance, Prasada wielded considerable clout. He was political adviser to two successive prime ministers, Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao, when they simultaneously held the office of party president.

Since Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bhartiya Janata Party won elections in 1998 and formed the government, the Congress party has fallen into disarray.

Prasada questioned the growing problems of indiscipline and sycophancy assailing the Congress and finally became the rallying point for dissidents in the party. But he never mustered the courage to leave the party, preferring to stay and fight from the ranks of the party.