Cong leader Jitendra Prasada is dead

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 16: Senior Congress leader and party MP from Shahjahanpur Jitendra Prasada died here this morning after battling with a...

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 16: Senior Congress leader and party MP from Shahjahanpur Jitendra Prasada died here this morning after battling with a massive brain haemorrhage for the last one week. The end came for the 62-year-old leader, who was in the spotlight recently for challenging Sonia Gandhi for the Congress president’s post, following a cardiac arrest at the Apollo hospital where he had been admitted.

Prasada had suffered massive brain haemorrhage on January 9 and since then had been on life-support systems. Doctors at the hospital said that all measures, including external cardiac massage, defibrillation and external pacemaker were deployed today to revive him but the efforts proved futile. The end came a little past noon.

Prasada is survived by his wife, a son and daughter. His cremation will take place on January 18 at his native place, Shahjahanpur, which the departed leader represented as many as five times in Lok Sabha during a political career spanning three decades.

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Soon after learning of the news of his death, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and other senior party leaders rushed to the hospital. The body was brought to his 11-A Teenmurti residence later in the evening to enable colleagues and admirers to pay their last respects. It will lie in state at the party headquarters at 24-Akbar road tomorrow morning before being taken by road to Shahjahanpur for the last rites.

Prime Minister A B Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi and a host of other dignatories and senior Congressmen visited visited Prasada’s residence in the evening to pay their last respects and condole his family.

A member of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), Prasada had in November last year mounted the first-ever challenge to the Nehru-Gandhi family by contesting against Sonia for the party president’s post. He was defeated by a overwhelming margin though in the process he emerged as the party’s chief dissident.