Bangalore, April 23 (IANS): Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) Karnataka unit president A. Krishnappa, who contested in the April 17 Lok Sabha election from Tumkur, passed away Wednesday following a heart attack, a party official said. He was 68.

"Krishnappa was at a badminton court near his home in the city's eastern suburb to play a game when he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a private hospital. He died even before the doctors could attend to him," JD-S spokesman Ramesh Babu told IANS.

Krishnappa, a former Congress minister and lawmaker from the K.R. Puram assembly segment in Bangalore, joined the JD-S in April 2013 after the Congress denied him a ticket to contest in the May 2013 assembly elections.

Krishnappa, a backward class leader, was elected in September 2013 as the JD-S state unit president after former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy relinquished the post following the party's poor performance in the assembly elections, in which the party won only 40 of the 224 seats.

Former prime minister and JD-S supermo H.D. Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy and scores of JD-S and Congress leaders expressed grief at Krishnappa's sudden demise and conveyed condolences to the bereaved family.