New Delhi, Jan. 16 :    New Delhi, Jan. 16:  First it was an officer par excellence who died in tragic circumstances. Today a gentleman joined him, leaving a huge void in the Congress. Rajesh Pilot and Jitendra Prasada had very little in common. Pilot was a born challenger, rebel and a fighter who came through the ranks to take on the high command. Prasada was an aristocrat, an adept backroom player, constantly planning and plotting. Yet, towards the end, they came together to revive inner-party democracy in the country's oldest political party. But destiny had other plans. First, Pilot met with a fatal accident and on January 9, Prasada suffered a brain haemorrhage that proved fatal. 'Jiti Bhai', as Prasada was fondly called, defied tradition and surprised his friends and foes alike when he decided to take on Sonia Gandhi in the organisational polls that concluded in November. No amount of persuasion, plea, advice and allurement worked to change his mind. Prasada did the unthinkable in the Congress parivar - challenge a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. To some, it was ironical that Prasada himself became a victim of palace intrigue, an art he had mastered as an understudy of the wily Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna and later as political secretary to Rajiv Gandhi and P.V. Narasimha Rao. The All India Congress Committee grapevine has it that Prasada was led up the garden path by some of his contemporaries who encouraged him to file the nomination against Sonia, convincing him that the lady would invite him for a rapprochement. The gameplan appeared good on paper, except that the call from 10, Janpath, never came. The old guard cautioned her against hosting a tea party, pointing out that it would be seen as a sign of weakness. The loyalist had no option but to turn a rebel. Coming from a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi, Prasada's provocation, however, rattled the Sonia camp. Leaving nothing to chance, the leadership ensured that Prasada's threat was wiped out. While the final tally showed Prasada getting just above 1 per cent of the votes against Rajiv's widow, Prasada's contribution, even by default, would always be acknowledged in the history of the Congress. He might not have been a towering person like Subhash Bose who made Mahatma Gandhi look really small in 1939, but Prasada succeeded in pricking the conscience of millions of partymen. During his whirlwind electioneering against Sonia, Prasada was greeted with locked doors at the party offices at Jaipur, Lucknow, Patna, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai. Yet, he maintained a solemn and dignified posture, refraining from launching a personal attack on Sonia though he was constantly egged on by known Sonia-baiters like the Samajwadi Party and the Nationalist Congress Party. Whenever, journalists asked him to comment on Sonia. He would say with a smile, 'Arrey bhai, hamen Congress mein rahna hai (I intend staying in the Congress). She is our leader.' Prasada's chequered political career spread over four decades saw many ups and downs such as the downfall of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh in the wake of the Mandal and Ayodhya movements. Till his death, however, he was optimistic about the future of the Congress in the state. He used to say: 'People are looking up towards us but we are failing to win their confidence. That is the real challenge before the Congress.' Born on November 12, 1938, in an aristocratic family in Lucknow, 'Baba sahib' entered politics in 1970 as a Member of the Legislative Council in Uttar Pradesh. He was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1971 and repeated the feat in the 1980, 1984 and 1999 elections from Shahjahanpur.