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.
