New Delhi: The Congress is looking for a president to lead it through the reigning tumult. Elections have been announced for the post to give the selection a modicum of legitimacy even as it is increasingly becoming clear that it will yet again be another Gandhi at the helm. While Congress wants to whitewash a fixed match as a contested win for the Gandhis, the moment demands a throwback at such leaders who could have taken the mantle of the party, which is in tatters, and could have affected a genuine turn-around. Only, these leaders died young, and in quick succession, very close to each other!Madhavrao Scindia—‘People’s Maharaja’Scindia was 56 when he died in a plane crash on 30 September, 2001, while on his way to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh to address a public rally. He was a veteran parliamentarian and one of the tallest leaders in the Congress, rated as the frontrunner to be the party’s prime ministerial candidate before the 1999 Lok Sabha elections as Sonia Gandhi’s chances had been marred by controversy around her foreign origin. The charismatic Congress leader was a scion of Gwalior royal family. All the eight persons, including Scindia, who were on board the ill-fated Cessna C-90 died in the crash. Their bodies were charred beyond recognition as the engine had caught fire and the plane had fallen out of the sky amid bad weather and poor visibility near Mota village in Bhogaon tehsil of Mainpuri district of central Uttar Pradesh. All the bodies were taken to Agra by road from where they were brought to Delhi by a special IAF aircraft sent by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Incidentally, Scindia had defeated Vajpayee in Lok Sabha Elections on the Gwalior seat way back in 1984. Don’t Miss: Dhoti pulled, locked in bathroom: How Sonia Gandhi ‘threw to the footpath’ Congress’ last non-Gandhi presidentThe plane had taken off at 12. 39 pm to touch down in Kanpur at 1. 50 pm, but had abruptly lost contact with the Lucknow Air Traffic Control at around 1. 20 pm. He was one of the few politicians in the Congress who had a mass base and whose charisma had a mass appeal, despite being the suave and sophisticated former Maharaja of Gwalior, son of Rajmata Vijaya Raje, who remained with the BJP until her last breath. A measure of Scindia’s popularity can be estimated from the fact that he would win every Congress Working Committee (CWC) election he contested by a huge margin, without even being part of the ‘informal panel’ formed as a quid pro quo to garner votes from delegates. As Minister for Railways under former PM Rajiv Gandhi, Scindia became a people’s hero: he introduced several fast Shatabdi Express trains connecting Delhi with several destinations; he also introduced the computerised ticketing system, doing away with insane queues at railway reservation counters. When Narasimha Rao took over as India’s prime minister in June 1991, he inducted Scindia into his cabinet as civil aviation minister. He resigned, however, taking responsibility when an aircraft, leased from Uzbekistan Airways during a domestic pilots’ strike, crash-landed at Delhi airport, though without any loss of life. Rao then inducted Scindia into the cabinet in 1995 as the HRD minister, to succeed Arjun Singh, who had quit the Congress to form a breakaway outfit. Subsequently, Scindia was denied party ticket 1996 after being charge-sheeted in the Hawala scam. He had then floated his own outfit, the Madhya Pradesh Vikas Congress (MPVC), but returned to the Congress fold within a year soon after Sitaram Kesri took over as Congress president. Scindia was elected in all the successive elections between 1971 and 1999. In yet another coincidence that does not bode well for the Congress, his son Jyotiraditya Scindia left Congress and joined the BJP. He now holds one of the ministries et the Centre that his father once had, the civil aviation ministry. Rajesh Pilot—Milkman who became MPA squadron leader when he jumped into Indian politics, Rajesh Pilot was the quintessential Sonia Gandhi-baiter, who went out and told with alacrity that he wanted to be the prime minister of India. According to media reports from 2000, Sonia Gandhi’s challenger had met her two days before he got killed in a road accident near Jaipur. The meeting was a long one. But, as death brought an abrupt end to the man and his ambition, the mystery of what had transpired in that meeting too died forever. After the unceremonious exit of Sharad Pawar from the Congress over the question of who would be the prime minister after the fall of Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led BJP government in 1999, Pilot was the sole leader of stature left to challenge Sonia Gandhi in the presidential elections slated in the same year. Incidentally, Pawar, in a 2018 interview had said that he had quit the party as Sonia Gandhi wanted to be the prime minister, while the legitimate claimants were either Manmohan Singh or Pawar himself. Earlier, Madhavrao Scindia had been in the reckoning for the top job when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991. His possible elevation led Rajesh Pilot to jump in the fray and lay claim as a young leader, and therefore best suited, to fill in for Rajiv Gandhi. In an interview on BBC Hardtalk, Pilot candidly proclaimed that he wanted to be the prime minister of India. “Yes,” he said to the question whether he would like to be India’s prime minister. In the same interview he severely criticised Sonia Gandhi, and just stopped short of demanding she step down as party president. Pilot had also ganged up with another rebel Jitendra Prasad, who contested against Sonia Gandhi for party president in 2000. Pilot had supported Prasad, though he had lost. Pilot’s life and career had come an abrupt end when his jeep, which he was driving, had collided with a bus in his Lok Sabha constituency Dausa, 90 km from Jaipur. Pilot had suffered multiple injuries on his head, chest and face. Pilot was to catch a Jet Airways flight to Delhi the same evening. Though he had been minister for internal security, Pilot’s Z+ security had recently been downgraded. According to a news report from that time carried by The Telegraph, “There was no talk of any foul play but newspapers received an anonymous fax late at night pointing an accusing finger at a controversial godman. Mahant Sewa Dass Singh, president of Pheruman Akali Dal, demanded a probe into events leading to the accident. “This is not a simple accident. His security was down-graded very recently despite threats to his life,” he said. The mahant was a key witness before the Jain Commission which also probed Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. He had bitterly opposed Congress’ alliance with J Jayalalitha and Rabri Devi. Formerly known as Rajeshwar Prasad, Pilot had represented Dausa six times in Lok Sabha. Hailing from Ghaziabad, Pilot was born in a poor family on 10 February, 1945. He lost his Armyman father quite early in life and was brought up by his brother who sold milk in Lutyen’s Delhi. In his autobiography, ‘Flight to Parliament’, Pilot reminisced how he rose from selling milk to MPs on chilly winter mornings to become an MP himself in 1980. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. .