K. Jana Krishnamurthi (24 May 1928 – 25 September 2007) was an Indian political leader who rose to be the President of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

(BJP) in 2001. A former Union

Law Minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, ...

and a member of the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of ...

, Krishnamurthi was the second person from Tamil Nadu to head a national party in India after

Kamaraj Kumaraswami Kamaraj (15 July 1903 – 2 October 1975, hinduonnet.com. 15–28 September 2001), popularly known as Kamarajar was an Indian independence activist and politician who served as the Chief Minister of Madras State (Tamil Nadu) ...

Early life

Krishnamurthi was born in

Madurai Madurai ( , also , ) is a major city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the cultural capital of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Madurai District. As of the 2011 census, it was the third largest Urban agglomeration i ...

in the

South India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...

n state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

. His mother tongue was

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

. An alumnus of the Chennai Law College, he gave up his successful law practice in Madurai in 1965. He was persuaded by M. S. Golwalkar, the then chief of the RSS, to enter politics.

Political career

An active member of the

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( ; , , ) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (Hindi for "Sangh family ...

(RSS) from 1940, Krishnamurthi took over as the General Secretary of the

Bharatiya Jana Sangh The Bharatiya Jana Sangh ( BJS or JS, short name: Jan Sangh, full name: Akhil Bharatiya Jana Sangh; ) ( ISO 15919: '' Akhila Bhāratīya Jana Saṅgha '' ) was an Indian right wing political party that existed from 1951 to 1977 and was the po ...

(BJS) in Tamil Nadu at the instance of

Atal Bihari Vajpayee Atal Bihari Vajpayee (; 25 December 1924 – 16 August 2018) was an Indian politician who served three terms as the 10th prime minister of India, first for a term of 13 days in 1996, then for a period of 13 months fr ...

. He played an active part in building an equity for the relatively unknown BJS in South India. In 1975 when

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

was declared, he was the secretary of the resistance movement in Tamil Nadu. In 1977 when BJS merged with the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nati ...

, he became the General Secretary of that party's Tamil Nadu unit. In 1980, he helped found the

(BJP) along with

Lal Krishna Advani Lal Krishna Advani (born 8 November 1927) is an Indian politician who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India from 2002 to 2004. Advani is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is a longtime memb ...

, SS Bhandari,

Kushabhau Thakre Kushabhau Thakre (15 August 1922 – 28 December 2003) was an Indian politician belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and a Member of parliament. Early life Kushabhau Thakre was born at Dhar, Madhya Pradesh in a Chandraseniya Kayastha Prab ...

and Jaganatha Rao Joshi. He was the founder National Secretary. In 1983 became one of the General Secretaries and from 1985 he was the Vice-President of the Party. From 1980 to 1990, he helped the BJP expand in the four Southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In 1993 he moved to

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

at the request of L. K. Advani and set up the Intellectual Cells of the BJP on Economic, Defence and Foreign Affairs. From 1995 onwards he was in charge of the BJP Headquarters. He also served as the Spokesperson of the Party. In 1998, Krishnamurthi contested the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

election from South Chennai and lost by a very small margin. On 14 March 2001 he took over as the President of the BJP from Bangaru Laxman. He held office until June 2002. Krishnamurthi then became the Union Law Minister in the cabinet of

. He stepped down in a year, due to ill health. He was a

Rajya Sabha The Rajya Sabha, constitutionally the Council of States, is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of India. , it has a maximum membership of 245, of which 233 are elected by the legislatures of the states and union territories using si ...

Member of Parliament from the State of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

and an active member of the Parliament Standing Committees on External Affairs and Defence. He was also the Chairman of the Petitions Committee. His tenure will be remembered for his frank and forthright report on Petrol Adulteration.

Death

Krishnamurthi died on 25 September 2007. He succumbed to a cardio-respiratory arrest at a private hospital in Chennai. His wife, Bhagyalakshmi died on 14 May 2021. He is survived by two sons (Krishnaswamy and Anantha Narayan) and three daughters (Radhika, Bharathi, and Shanthi).

References

External links

Life Sketch of Jana Krishnamurthi

India's Cleanest Politician

Profile on Rajya Sabha website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krishnamurthi, Jana 1928 births 2007 deaths Politicians from Madurai Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Tamil Nadu Rajya Sabha members from Gujarat Presidents of Bharatiya Janata Party Law Ministers of India Members of the Cabinet of India