NEW DELHI: As the ruling Congress party struggled to cope with the sudden death of Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, chief minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh and one of its most dynamic leaders, there was a strange sense of déjà vu in the Indian capital.

Not only has the party lost several icons, including Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, to violence, several of its key ‘GenNext’ leaders have died in accidents. When reports came in on Wednesday that Reddy’s helicopter had gone missing in bad weather en route to an official engagement, there was panic among the party’s (and country’s) leadership at the likely loss of a mass leader who, in the national elections earlier this year, had belied predictions and managed to bring 33 members of Parliament to the Congress kitty. There was also almost an inevitability about what the outcome would be, and news that his helicopter had been recovered along with his dead body last morning, after a massive manhunt, only confirmed what most people privately believed.

Another of the Congress’s dynamic leaders, Madhavrao Scindia, a scion of the Gwalior royal family who won his seat to Parliament nine times and served as a Union cabinet minister, and was even tipped as a likely prime ministerial candidate for the party, died at age 56 when his plane crashed eight years ago, also in September.

Before him in June 2000, former Internal Security minister and an Indian Air Force pilot turned popular leader from Rajasthan Rajesh Pilot died in a road crash aged 55 as he was driving his vehicle. The common thread that ran through all these leaders — former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, 46, his younger brother Sanjay’ 33, who died in a plane crash, Scindia, Pilot and now YSR — was that they died in the prime of their political careers. According to an observer, while the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party struggles to bring about a leadership change from one generation to the next, from LK Advani to one of a host of ‘GenNext’ leaders with powerful ambitions, the Congress loses its frontrunners to sudden death! YSR, as he was popularly known, was what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called a “model” Chief Minister, who combined a vision for development with a panache for delivery of populist measures, ensuring that Andhra Pradesh became a favored destination for foreign direct investment. Reddy, 60, played host to former US President George W Bush when the latter visited Hyderabad in March 2006, and his death has been condoled by several foreign countries including the United States and Britain. According to party sources, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who has in the past faced sudden tragedy in her personal life, is extremely upset and has been in constant communication with YSR’s wife andfamily. Along with the PM, Gandhi attended Reddy’s funeral at the latter’s village in Cudappa today.