PTI 
 
Chennai, Sept 25: Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Jana K Krishnamurthy died at a private hospital in Chennai following a prolonged illness. He was 79 and is survived by wife, two sons and three daughters.

Jana, as he is popularly called by admirers, is considered one of the 'cleanest politicians' of the country. He started his political career as a RSS volunteer in 1940 and became the first south Indian president of BJP in 2001.

He became Union law minister in 2003.

Born on May 24, 1928 at Madurai in a family of lawyers, he practised as an advocate in Chennai for over ten years, before he was attracted to the RSS. He later became its Pranth Baudhik Pramukh.

On instructions from the then RSS chief Golwalkar, he enrolled himself as a member of the Jan Sangh, the previous 'avataar' of the BJP, in 1965.

During the Emergency, he was the secretary of the Resistance Movement in Tamil Nadu. At that time, he came into close contact with some national leaders like George Fernandes, who was staying in the state then.

When the Janata Party was formed in 1977, Krishnamurthy was named one of the general secretaries of the party's Tamil Nadu unit.

When the party split in 1980, on the issue of dual membership, Krishnamurthy, a close confidant of A B Vajpayee and L K Advani, became one of the founders of the BJP and was given the charge of southern states.

He moved to New Delhi in 1993 at the request of Advani to head the intellectual cell of the party.

Before becoming president of the party, he was the general secretary and vice-president for many terms.

A great orator in Tamil, English and Hindi, Jana had translated many speeches of Vajpayee and Advani during their visits to the state.

He unsuccessfully contested the 1996 Lok Sabha elections from south Chennai, where he was defeated by DMK's T R Baalu by a narrow margin of 10,000 votes.

His funeral, to be held on Wednesday, is likely to be attended by senior BJP leaders.