The poll panel had asked Rahul Gandhi to respond on Monday to allegations that his comments at rallies were aimed at spreading communal hatred.
Rahul Gandhi today urged the Election Commission not to proceed against him on some controversial statements he made in recent election rallies, and denied that he had violated any poll code of conduct.
Responding to a show-cause notice by the Election Commission, Mr Gandhi asserted that he was "legally entitled to talk about his party's ideology and about rivals" but made no mention of his comments on the ISI, which had ignited a huge row.
The poll panel had issued notice to the 43-year-old politician on comments that included the suggestion that Pakistan's ISI has contacted young Muslims in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar area to recruit them to work against India.
In his response, which contained a long critique of communal politics, Mr Gandhi also argued that his party's ideology was inclusive and did not leave out any community.
"We will examine the reply and decide as soon as possible," said poll panel Chief VS Sampath.
The BJP scoffed at his response. "Does he mean that mentioning ISI in his speech is Congress's ideology?" tweeted Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
The Election Commission's notice followed the BJP's complaint that the Congress leader had falsely accused the party of inciting communal tension. Mr Gandhi's response came in a sealed envelope, four days after his original deadline of Monday to reply to the notice; he had asked for an extra week.
In rallies at poll-bound Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh last month, Mr Gandhi had blamed the BJP for "lighting the fire" of divisive politics. As an example, he cited September's riots in Muzaffarnagar in Western Uttar Pradesh in which nearly 60 people were killed. The BJP, he said, instigates communal tension and it falls upon his party "to douse the fire."
The Congress number 2 also controversially claimed that an intelligence officer had disclosed that Pakistani agencies, including the country's powerful ISI, were in touch with young Muslim men whose families had been affected in the riots in Muzaffarnagar, allegedly to lure them into working against India.
The opposition had questioned why intelligence officers were briefing Mr Gandhi, who is a parliamentarian but holds no post in the government.