Hazare was addressing a felicitation function organised by the Yugantar Pratisthan, which conferred the Karmaveer Dadasaheb Gaikwad award to Hazare, the Ramabai Ambedkar award to social worker Shantabai Dani and the Bandumadhav award to Marathi writer Ghanashyam Dongre in Nashik last night.

He said that he would spend the rest of his life fighting corruption and for rural development. He said that politicians having criminal record and indulging in corruption were more dangerous than the Kargil intruders.

He also said that having fought the 1965 and the 1971 wars the soldier in him had woken up to fight against people who were posing a bigger threat than the Pakistani intruders.

As part of his awareness tour, Hazare would ask people to ignore candidates who were corrupt or had any criminal recordand vote only for honest candidates. He said that whenever a candidate approached a voter seeking his vote, the voter should ask the candidate whether he would make appropriate laws for the right to information, whether the Officials Secrets Act would be repealed, whether he had declared his assets, and whether 30 per cent of the budgetary allocations would be utilised for rural development.

Hazare said that the voters should cast their vote only in favour of those candidates who have promised to fulfill the demands and had a spotless character. He further said that the people of the country could truly taste the fruits of freedom only if the voter woke up to the facts and refused to be a pawn in the hands of corrupt politicians.

He said that though he had given up his hunger fast, he would intensify his agitation against corruption and criminalisation of politics. The voter awareness campaign to be launched by him shortly was the first step towards cleansing the Indian polity and make Mahatma Gandhi'sdream of a self sufficient, self reliant and self governed village come true, he said.