New Delhi, Apr 18 (IANS): Amid massive Covid surge in the country, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has suspended all his political rallies in West Bengal and asked other political parties to think about the consequences of holding big rallies in the middle of the raging pandemic.

"In view of the Covid situation, I am suspending all my public rallies in West Bengal. I would advise all political leaders to think deeply about the consequences of holding large public rallies under the current circumstances," Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet.

In West Bengal, three phases of elections are still left to be held, but due to the Covid surge, there has been a demand to hold rest of the elections in a single phase.

India reported staggering 2,61,500 fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day spike ever, pushing the country's overall Covid tally to 1,47,88,109, according to the Health Ministry data released on Sunday.

This is the fourth consecutive day that the country has registered over 2 lakh Covid cases. India recorded 2,34,92 cases were reported on Saturday, 2,00,739 and 2,17,353 cases on Thursday and Friday respectively.

Meanwhile, as many as 1,501 people died of Covid in the last 24 hours, taking the country's death toll to 1,77,150 so far. The daily active cases tally rose to 18,01316.