Rigging the Indian election 2009

After months, in quest of the ever elusive peace, I wish to ask the question out loud.

And of course being fully aware that, it being what it is - a question that may never be answered "truthfully" - for me or the "Aam Aadmee" in general or for the larger good of democracy, "Was the Indian (e)Election 2009 (also) rigged"?

Of course, a "Committee" constituted to probe into it should be able to prove it to the contrary very easily, though. Piece of cake, you say, eh? om tat sat! (i am equally confortable with "amen").
Despite the disillusionment or enlightenment over many deades, and inspite of being totally un-enthusiastic about the whole Indian election process (I never voted and never will), I told my wife towards the end of the last phase of polling that the elections could have been rigged. I mean, well, how difficult is it to go about EVM rigging for the motivated mind, in coersion with [inside] technical help. Controls and Control Objectives you say? No idea I say.

My fears had yet to be confirmed and I tried to shoo them away. India has changed a lot I said to myself. Did some one say "dog's tail"? .... oops.

How ever, I didn't have to wait long. My inkling was only strengthened during the counting process and of course it started to became clearer with declaration of results for each constituency.

Google is good. So is Facebook(The search says it is Powered By Bing). The Telugus say, "yE rAya ayitEnEmi paLLu rAla goTTu kOvadAniki?" - any stone would do the job - break the teeth.

A couple of articles clearly reinforce my belief today. Proof that there are "thinking" people inspite of the apparent intellectual exhaustion and apathy accross the board. I googled, but you can ofcourse "Askjeeves/dogpile/Altavista/khoj" for more.
Here 3 interesting URLs.

1. How a 1964 batch IAS officer (and IIT Grad) proved it to CEC and as a result an inquiry is in progress
URL here: http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/politics/25738-was-indian-election-2009-rigged.html

2. Article on Facebook: An analytical aproach
URL here: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=11373168665&topic=8897

3. OpEd in The Hindu:
URL here: http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/17/stories/2009061755160900.htm )

Back in 2003/2004 I did a decent amount of study on "Diebold EVMs" and believed strongly that EVMs in India would be used to the disadvantage of the democracy. I found a helpful article here http://citp.princeton.edu/pub/ts06full.pdf too. None other than the much haloed Princeton University had done the detailed study. It could have been funded by any one. I am not going there. But you get the idea. They are piece of gadget and are technically "Riggable". Theories abound harking about, how Indian EVMs are extermely simple and secure and can't be rigged. I agree about the simplicity, how they are different from other complex EVMs, that they are not Diebold and finally that they were procured from BEL and ECIL. By the way, BEL and ECIL got them from some third party sub-contractors.

So there you go.... ..." Were the elections rigged?"....while I know the answer, I will wait for the hundreds of pages in report that the committee is concocting under the able guidance of whazhisname-cha(i)w(a)la. Be sure to read the first and the last lines. These will tell you how they are going to do it and what they just did.

Silly me.... of course you know to do as much....so with no further ado - I bid you all adieu...