Rejecting the allegation that he was sensationalising the issue, Saigal, former Delhi Chief Secretary, said in a letter to Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi that he had made an oral presentation before Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla who had assured a complete examination by the EC and by the scientific advisory committee headed by Prof Indiresan.
Saigal claimed the CEC also assured him that, if required, adequate safeguards would be introduced and, if that too did not suffice, EC would not hesitate to go back to the ballot papers.
"Please don't think that we are the only ones to express the fears of electoral fraud through a dogla software (Trojan-horse). Both the technical committees set up by the EC, one in April 1990 and the other in Sept 2006, had articulated similar fears. These committees were headed by Prof Indiresan," Saigal said.
He said he could give a detailed presentation to the EC to show how a dogla software can be used to rig an election.
The EC had said on Monday that it would consider all the points raised and apprehensions expressed by various political leaders, and individuals regarding EVMs and take all necessary measures to clear doubts.
Saigal said the experts' committee had examined the possibility of a "trojan horse sub programme" being wilfully activated after knowing the key number allocation to favour a particular candidate by activating the software through some mechanism at the time of poll.
The committee had prescribed a large number of pre- and post-poll election checks in its reports as part of the audit, Saigal said in his letter.
"....Please ensure that no key audit functions are given to persons not directly accountable and reporting to EC," he added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Samajwadi Party and Trinamool Congress have said the doubts raised about the possibility of rigging through EVMs should be examined carefully.
