New Delhi, July 5 : L.K. Advani today found support from rivals CPM, Janata Dal (Secular) and Lok Janshakti Party for his suggestion that ballot papers be re-introduced instead of electronic voting machines.

The BJP leader had said he did not doubt the Lok Sabha election results but felt that the country should revert to the ballot paper, starting with the Maharashtra Assembly elections in October.

EVMs should only be used if the Election Commission could ensure the machines were foolproof and every possibility of malfunction was taken care of, Advani said.

The EVM controversy gained momentum when former Delhi chief secretary Omesh Saigal made a presentation to the Election Commission on how EVMs could be programmed to manipulate results, after which the panel asked a deputy commissioner to probe the matter.

The Congress called Advani’s demand “astonishing”. It said Advani’s words showed that a losing party was in search of wrong answers for its defeat.

Rejecting the BJP’s charge, the Election Commission tonight said it was satisfied the EVMs were foolproof and that it would consider measures to clear the apprehensions of political parties.

BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad noted that in Germany, voting machines had been prohibited while in the US, it was mandatory to provide paper backups for EVMs.

The CPM said the questions being raised about EVMs should be considered “very seriously”, especially because many countries had reverted to ballot papers, including developed ones.

“Many questions have already been raised relating to EVMs. These are serious issues and if we want to strengthen our democracy, then we should consider the matter very seriously,” CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said.

JD(S) chief H.D. Deve Gowda claimed secrecy could not be maintained in EVMs.

LJP secretary-general Abdul Khalid said EVMs could be tampered with and his party had demanded that they be replaced by ballot papers.

Congress ally Mamata Banerjee today said she had no problem with EVMs.

Reacting to Yechury’s statement, the Trinamul Congress chief said: “I first demanded that elections be held through the ballot since the CPM was tampering with EVMs. They had tampered with the EVMs in 2006 to defeat us in the Assembly elections. But if elections are conducted in a free and fair manner, we don’t mind if they are held either through ballots or EVMs.