The State Election Commission (SEC) of Maharashtra awarded the first ‘Democracy Award’ in the category of “Increasing  Citizens’ Participation in the Electoral Process (Dissemination of information about contesting candidates to make the voters more informed)” to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

An ADR release said that the award was received by Prof Trilochan Sastry, Chairman and Founder Trustee of ADR, and Dr Ajit Ranade, Founder Trustee of ADR and conferred by Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu in the presence of Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, at an awards ceremony held at Hotel ITC Maratha in Mumbai.

ADR, which works for electoral reforms, is among 14 organizations and individuals to receive this award in one of the six categories, for taking the initiative in implementing innovative activities during the general elections to urban local bodies since 2016.

The ADR release read, “SEC Maharashtra was the first in India to introduce e-filing of affidavits by candidates and digitize the affidavit data back in 2016. In collaboration with SEC Maharashtra, ADR enabled generation of candidates’ and winners’ reports for local body elections held in Maharashtra. In the last four years, ADR and Maharashtra Election Watch published 77 reports on Local Body Elections which were covered in regional and national media including prominent newspapers with wide reach in Maharashtra like LokSatta, Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times.”