India overtook Brazil on Monday to become the second-worst hit country globally in terms of COVID-19 infections as the South Asian nation bears the brunt of a second wave of the deadly virus owing to crowded election rallies in several states, religious festivals and relaxed attitudes by the people.

 India reported a record in daily coronavirus infections, logging over 168,000 cases between Sunday and Monday mornings.

 At present India's overall tally is 13,527,717, according to Johns Hopkins University's data while Brazil's total cases stand at 13,482,023.

 The United States continues to remain the worst-hit nation by the Covid pandemic with 31,222,346 cases overall reported in the country till date.

 The total number of deaths because of the deadly virus in India crossed 170.000.

 The most affected states in the country are Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

 Kerala and Tamil Nadu recently had local elections with huge crowd turn-ups at various rallies by politicians.

 Maharashtra is the worst-hit state in India with Pune alone crossing 100,000active cases and Mumbai registering almost 100,000 infections.

 Cases spiked in the last two weeks across all five states where elections were held.

 Kerala, which recorded a 16 per cent decline in cases earlier, is now reporting an 84 per cent growth.

 Around 4 million people were likely to have attended the Kumbh Mela in Uttarakhand's Haridwar and tens of thousands in Bengal rallies amid the eight-phased election process, India Blooms said.