The Election Commission of India (ECI) told the Supreme Court on Thursday (August 14, 2025) that it got “caught up” in the “sharp contests” among political parties.

Appearing before a Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, for the ECI, pointed to the allegations raised against it about EVMs, and now the portrayal of the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar as “citizenship screening”.

“Today is a time of sharp political contest. The ECI is caught up in this sharp contest between political parties,” Mr. Dwivedi submitted.

Justice Kant referred to the situation as “political hostility”.

Mr. Dwivedi opened his counter-submissions to the SIR challenge by reminiscing how India had lived in a “euphoric state” after Independence.

During the time of the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Congress had held “complete sway”. From the late 1960s, Mr. Dwivedi said the political struggles and break-ups had emerged.

“The Congress split up, the Emergency, these were times when political contest came out sharply in the open,” he submitted:

He then referred to the era of Chief Election Commissioner T.N. Seshan. “He did many good things, but overstepped too,” Mr. Dwivedi said. He crossed over to the coalition governments and concluded with the EC bearing the brunt of the current political contest among parties.

“Political parties have the necessity to project certain things as realities in the public domain. We understand. We restrain ourselves,” Mr. Dwivedi said

He referred to how the petitioners in the Bihar SIR case depict Bihar as living in a dark age.

“It is a land of enlightenment,” Mr. Dwivedi remarked.

However, Justice Kant intervened to note with a reality-check that there were “populations in Bihar living in poverty too”.