Former Union minister and six-term member of Parliament Mallikarjun on Tuesday evening died of a cardiac arrest in Hyderabad.

Members of his family said that Mallikarjun, who was active earlier in the day, suddenly collapsed in the evening. They tried to revive him and then rushed him to the CARE hospital, where he was declared dead on admission.

Doctors said he died of a heart attack. Mallikarjun (61) is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.

He began his political career as a student leader during the 'Separate Telangana' agitation that rocked Andhra Pradesh in 1969-71.

Elected to the Lok Sabha from Medak constituency as a Telangana Praja Samithi candidate in 1971, he later joined the Congress and was re-elected in 1977.

He was elected from Mahbubnagar constituency in 1980, 1989, 1991 and 1996 but lost to the then Janata Dal leader S Jaipal Reddy in the 1984 and 1998 Lok Sabha elections and to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Jitender Reddy in the 1999 poll.

Mallikarjun was a minister under Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao, handling the railways and defence portfolios as a minister of state.

He was the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president between 1996 and 1998.

Of late, he was trying to form a pressure group of Telangana leaders within the Congress.

Mallikarjun had been keeping indifferent health in the recent past and was frequently being administered oxygen therapy.

More reports from Andhra Pradesh