NEW DELHI, Aug 16:
Former cricketer and UP Cabinet Mini-ster Chetan Chauhan died today due to COVID-19 related complications, his brother Pushpendra Chauhan said.
Chauhan, who played 40 Tests for India, was 73.
He is survived by his wife and son Vinayak, who is scheduled to arrive from Melbourne later in the day.
Due to kidney related ailments, his health had deteriorated and he was shifted to Medanta hospital in Gurgaon where he had been put on life support for nearly 36 hours.
“My elder brother Shri Chetan Chauhan has left us today after fighting a good battle. I sincerely thank everyone who had prayed for his recovery. His son Vinayak will be reaching anytime and we will then perform last rites,” Pushpendra said.
Chauhan, who was Sunil Gavaskar’s longest serving opening partner, was earlier admitted to Sanjay Gandhi PGI in Lucknow on July 12 after being found COVID-19 positive.
On Friday night, he had a multi-organ failure and was put on ventilator support.
Chauhan was a Cabinet Minister in the Yogi Adityanath Government. He held the portfolios of Sainik Welfare, Home Guards, PRD and Civil Security. The BJP leader was earlier elected to Lok Sabha twice.
He is the second UP Minister to have succumbed to Coronavirus.
On August 2, State Technical Education Minister Kamla Rani Varun, 62, had died days after testing positive for COVID-19.
Meanwhile, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 25,89,682 with a single-day spike of 63,490 infections, while the total number of recoveries rose to 18,62,258 pushing the recovery rate to 71.91 per cent today, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The death toll due to Coronavirus infection climbed to 49,980 with 944 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.
India has been reporting over 60,000 cases daily since August 7, barring August 11 when the country registered 53,601 new cases of the infection.
The case fatality rate has declined to 1.93 per cent. There are 6,77,444 active cases of Coronavirus infection in the country presently which comprise 26.16 per cent of the total caseload in the country.
India had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7.
According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 2,93,09,703 samples have been tested up to August 15 with 7,46,608 samples being tested on Saturday. (PTI)
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