Covid-19 cuts short RS member Ashok Gasti's meteoric rise to the top

Rajya Sabha member Ashok Gasti, who died due to Covid-19 on Thursday, did not get an opportunity to attend the Parliament session.

Gasti took oath in Kannada as a Rajya Sabha member on July 22 along with other newly-elected Rajya Sabha members -- BJP's Eranna Kadadi and Congress leader Mallikarjuna Kharge.

Though Parliament session started on September 14, Gasti couldn't attend it as he was already hospitalised for treatment.

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The Parliament session is being held after a gap of more than five months as the Budget session was adjourned sine die on March 23 due to Covid-19.

Rajya Sabha Secretariat had allocated an official residence to him at South Avenue soon after he took oath. But on his request, the Secretariat allotted a new house at Meena Bagh, close to India Gate, on Thursday.

Sources close to him said that after he became Rajya Sabha member, he visited Delhi only twice. The first time he came to the national capital was to fill Rajya Sabha forms for oath-taking and then for oath-taking.

When he came to take oath, he brought his family members and paid a courtesy call to several union ministers.

During his visit to Delhi, he stayed at the residence of BJP state unit president Nalin Kumar Kateel, who is also Dakshina Kannada MP, on Mahadev Road.

Gasti (55), from Raichur, died on Thursday due to multiorgan failure after contracting Covid-19.

It may be recalled that senior Congress leader Devendra Dwivedi was appointed as Governor of Gujarat in 2019. But he too died before taking oath in a Delhi hospital.