Former India opener Chetan Chauhan succumbs to Covid-19

Former Indian opener and Uttar Pradesh minister Chetan Chauhan died from Covid-19 on Sunday, at a private hospital at Gurugram in Haryana. He was survived by his wife and son.

73-year-old Chauhan, who was Minister for Home Guards, had been suffering from Covid-19 for the past several days and was shifted to the super-specialty Gurugram hospital from Sanjay Gandhi PGI in Lucknow on Saturday.

He was on life support and according to sources, his condition turned critical on Sunday morning. His kidney function was severely affected and his blood pressure had also shot up, sources said.

An MLA from Naugawan Sadat assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh's Amroha district, Chauhan had also represented BJP in the Lok Sabha twice in 1991 and 1998.

Chauhan played 40 tests for India between 1969 and 1978 and had scored 2,084 runs at an average of 31.54. His highest score is 97 and he made sixteen half-centuries.

Incidentally, Chauhan was the second UP minister who succumbed to Covid-19. UP minister Kamal Rani Varun had also died from Covid-19 earlier this month.

So far as many as five UP ministers have tested positive for coronavirus. Before Kamal Rani and Chetan Chauhan, UP ministers Jai Pratap Singh, Upendra Tewari, Rajendra Pratap Singh, and Dharma Singh Saini had also tested positive.

UP has witnessed a sudden surge in Covid-19 cases in the past few days and around four thousand cases were reported almost on a daily basis. So far 2,499 people have died from Covid-19 in the state. The Covid-19 tally stood at 1.54 lakh on Sunday.