With India's Covid-19 cases crossing the 500,000-mark, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the government has no plan to defeat the pandemic and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has surrendered as he refuses to fight coronavirus.

"Covid19 is spreading rapidly into new parts of the country. The Government Of India has no plan to defeat it," Gandhi tweeted.

Training his guns on Modi, he said, "PM is silent. He has surrendered and is refusing to fight the pandemic."

He also tagged a report that claimed the government had "retreated" as no meeting of the ICMR panel or the Group of Ministers had taken place and neither had the Health Ministry held its briefings on the pandemic.

India's COVID-19 tally raced past five lakh on Saturday with the highest single-day surge of 18,552 cases, while the death toll climbed to 15,685, according to Union Health Ministry data.

The virus caseload zoomed to 5,08,953, while 384 fresh fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours.