COVID: UP registers highest daily deaths; HC judge, BJP MLA succumb to the virus

ALLAHABAD: Justice Virendra Kumar Srivastava of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court died of COVID-19 on Wednesday.

He was 59.

Srivastava, who had tested positive for coronavirus, was undergoing treatment at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute (SGPGI) in Lucknow.

While giving this information, Allahabad High Court Registrar (Protocol) Ashish Kumar Srivastava said that Justice Srivastava died at SGPGI on Wednesday.

The Allahabad High Court and its Lucknow bench will remain closed on Thursday to mourn the death of Justice Srivastava.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has expressed grief over the death of Justice Srivastava, the Uttar Pradesh government said in a statement issued in Lucknow on Wednesday.

Kesar Singh Gangwar, the sitting BJP MLA from Bareilly's Nawabganj constituency, on Wednesday succumbed to COVID-19.

He was 64.

Family sources said that Gangwar was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Noida for the past few days, where he died.

He had recently tested positive for coronavirus.

Gangwar is survived by his wife, three daughters and a son.

He was a member of the Legislative Council from the BSP in 2009, and in 2017 he joined the BJP, and won the Assembly election from Nawabganj.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and state Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit condoled his death, while state BJP chief Swatantradev Singh and general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal expressed their sorrow.

Gangwar is the third MLA in the state who succumbed to the virus in the second wave.

Before this, BJP MLA from Auraiya Ramesh Chandra Diwakar (56) died on April 23 in Meerut, while Suresh Kumar Srivastava (76), the BJP MLA from Lucknow West, succumbed to the viral disease on April 23.

The state on Wednesday recorded the highest single-day rise in its COVID-19 death toll with 266 more people succumbing to disease, while 29,824 new cases pushed the tally to 11,82,848.

The death toll in the state now stands at 11,943.

A total of 35,903 COVID-19 patients were discharged after recovery in the past 24 hours.

Of the 266 fresh deaths, Allahabad recorded 21 deaths, followed by 15 in Hardoi, 14 in Varanasi, 13 each in Lucknow and Kanpur, 12 each in Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad, 11 in Gorakhpur and 10 in Agra, the Uttar Pradesh government said in a statement here.

Of the new cases, Lucknow reported 3,759 cases, followed by 1,909 in Varanasi, 1,650 in Kanpur, 1,355 in Meerut, 1,261 in Allahabad, 1,076 in Agra, 1,045 in Gorakhpur and 1,041 in Bareilly.

A total of 8,70,864 COVID-19 patients have been discharged after recovery so far.

The total number of active COVID-19 cases in the state stands at 3,00,041, the statement said.

In the past 24 hours, more than 1.86 lakh samples in the state have been tested for COVID-19, taking the total samples tested so far to 4.03 crore.