The National Election Watch (NEW) and Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) have received the prestigious ‘National CSO Award-2015’ for the best voter education and awareness for Lok Sabha elections 2014.

ADR founder trustees Prof Jagdeep Chhokar and Ajit Ranade, and Maj. Gen. Anil Verma (Retd.), Head, ADR, received the award from former president APJ Abdul Kalam on the occasion of Election Commission’s 5th national voter’s day celebrations held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi.

The NEW chapters of Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have received special mention in the award for their expansive and innovative campaigns to reach out to the voters.

Rajiv Kumar (Bihar Election Watch), Ranjan Kumar Mohanty (Odisha Election Watch), Rolly Shivhare (Madhya Pradesh Election Watch), Prashant Dubey (Madhya Pradesh Election Watch), Girish Upadhyay (Madhya Pradesh Election Watch), Sanjay Singh (Uttar Pradesh Election Watch), Anil Sharma (Uttar Pradesh Election Watch), Ajit Ranade (Maharashtra Election Watch/ADR) and Sharad Kumar (Maharashtra Election Watch) received the Award on behalf of their states

The intensive Voter Awareness campaign named “Mera Vote Mera Desh” was launched by NEW and ADR in February 2014 and continued till the polling for 2014 Lok Sabha ended. The Campaign was undertaken in almost every state of the country through the local state chapter of NEW to educate voters on the background details of candidates and build public opinion on the need for de-criminalization and reduction of money power in politics. 

ADR is a non-partisan, non-profit organization working towards electoral and political reforms for the past 15 years. It aims at decriminalization of politics, empowerment of the electorate and bringing transparency, accountability and inner-party democracy in the functioning of political parties.

ADR engages with more than 1200 partner organizations across the country, collectively called the NEW. The NEW is a national-wide campaign comprising of citizen led organization working towards strengthening democracy. It is active in almost all states of India and has conducted Election Watches for all Assembly and Parliamentary Elections from 2002 to enable citizens to make an informed choice during elections.