Chennai, Sept. 25: Former BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy died here today after a prolonged illness. He was 79 and is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.

The last rites of Krishnamurthy, will be performed on Wednesday. Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani, party chief Rajnath Singh, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi will attend the funeral.

Born on May 24, 1928, in Madurai to a family of lawyers, Krishnamurthy, or Jana as he was fondly called, studied in the temple town and in Chennai. He worked as a lawyer in Madurai for 12 years before joining the RSS in 1940 and served as a pracharak for several years.

Krishnamurthy (in picture) joined the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1965 at the behest of former RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar and was the secretary of the party in Tamil Nadu.

In 1968, Jana left his legal practice to become a Jana Sangh full-timer, party sources said, adding that he had taken the decision at the call of Atal Bihari Vajpayee after the murder of party veteran Deendayal Upadhayaya.

When the BJP was formed in 1980, he became one of its founder-secretaries. The party top job came to him after the exit of Bangaru Laxman over the Tehelka scandal. He held the post from March 2001 to June 2002.

Krishnamurthy, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, was also law minister in the NDA government.