Delhi Election Watch, a coalition of 22 non-government organisations, on Monday said it will help voters select the right candidates in the forthcoming assembly election in Delhi.
DEW has such eminent personalities on board as former naval chief Admiral R H Tahiliani, former Union secretary K C Sivaramakrishnan, Justice (retd) Rajinder Sachar, lawyers Kamini Jaiswal and Prashant Bhushan, and Major-General (retd) Vinod Saighal.
"We have no political agenda, we just want a clean, well-ruled India," Admiral Tahiliani told reporters at a press conference.
Admiral Tahiliani said the group will use the Supreme Court's March 13 judgement on electoral reforms, which makes it mandatory for candidates to declare their assets and also criminal cases, if any, pending against them, to create awareness amongst voters about their rights.
From Rediff Archives: Candidates must declare assets, pending cases: SC
DEW proposes to collect information about candidates from the public and the media, screen it, process it and make it available to the public.
The coalition has sent letters to all members of the Delhi assembly, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the Leader of the Opposition Madan Lal Khurana requesting them to make information about their candidates available to its screening committee.
Sivaramakrishnan said DEW's endeavour is just a beginning in the direction of giving Delhi a clean administration.
He, however, said there will be pitfalls in their way, but they will not deter the organisation's determination to purge Delhi's politics of corrupt and criminal elements.
In his letter to Chief Minister Dikshit, Sivaramakrishnan reminds her that her Congress party has consistently maintained that it is in favour of full disclosure of assets and pending criminal cases by every candidate.
"I am making this special request on behalf of DEW that you as the leader of the Congress party in Delhi and as chief minister should take the lead in providing the information that the citizens are seeking from all prospective candidates," he says in the letter to Dikshit.