Former Indian cricketer and Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Chetan Chauhan died at the Medanta Hospital here on Sunday due to multiple organ failure. He was 73.
Chauhan was admitted to the hospital on July 17 after he tested positive for COVID-19 and breathed his last around 5 p.m., hospital sources said. He was put on ventilator support a day earlier after he developed kidney and blood pressure-related problems and his condition deteriorated.
Expressing condolences over his death, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a tweet, described him as a “wonderful cricketer” and a “diligent political leader”. Mr. Modi said Chauhan had made effective contributions to public service and in strengthening the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
Chauhan is the second U.P. Cabinet Minister to die of COVID-19-related illness. Kamla Rani Varun, who died earlier this month, had also tested COVID-positive.
Born on July 21, 1947, in Bareilly, Chauhan graduated from a college in Pune, Maharashtra, where he also started his first-class cricket career. He played 40 test matches scoring a little under 2,100 runs at an average of 31.57 in 13 years for India.
Soon after retiring from the game, Chauhan contested the Lok Sabha election on a BJP ticket, winning from west U.P.’s Amroha in 1991. He lost the election in 1996, won again in 1998, and lost again in 1999 and 2004.
In 2017, he won the Assembly election on a BJP ticket from the Naugawan Sadat seat in Amroha securing over 96,000 votes. He currently held the Sainik Welfare, Home Guards, Prantiya Rakshak Dal and Civil Security portfolios. He was earlier the Sports Minister of the State.
(With inputs from Omar Rashid)
