Mumbai: The State Election Commission (SEC) of Maharashtra today awarded the first ‘Democracy Award’ in the category of “Increasing Citizens' Participation in Electoral Process (Dissemination of information about contesting candidates to make the voters more informed)” to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
On behalf of ADR, Prof Trilochan Sastry, Chairman and Founder Trustee of ADR, and Dr Ajit Ranade, Founder Trustee of ADR, received the award at the hands of Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu in the presence of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, at an awards ceremony held at Hotel ITC Maratha in Mumbai.
ADR 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.
While receiving the award, Prof Sastry complimented the State Election Commission of Maharashtra for its pioneering work and for having laid the foundation for real democracy in villages, panchayats and towns. He added that we need to spread this to other states.
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 the 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 a wide reach in Maharashtra like LokSatta, Lokmat, Pudhari and Maharashtra Times. Similarly, the ADR too had published several Election watch reports in Telangana as well.
To access ADR Maharashtra Local Body Elections’ reports, please go to https://adrindia.org/content/
