Chennai, Apr 4 (IANS): RTI activist and Makkal Needhi Maiam candidate from Tamil Nadu's Tambaram Assembly constituency, Siva Elango has appealed to people to crowd fund his "Zero Budget" campaign, for which he already collected around Rs 6 lakh.

Elango, who is associated with the Satta Panchayath Iyyakam (SPI), said contesting elections to public officer with public money would lead to the candidate becoming more responsible.

He told media persons that he has received Rs 3 lakh as seed money from friends and well-wishers, as well as fellow activists, and Rs 3 lakh more from the public after his appeal for funding his election expenses.

Elango said that he was able to cover more areas of Tambaram constituency than his opponent candidates who had spent crores of rupees during electioneering.

The RTI activist was focusing more on digital campaigning and had communicated directly to the voters and answered the queries posted by the voters by interacting with the Resident Welfare Associations.

Talking to IANS, Elango said: "Both the DMK-led front and the AIADMK-led front are spending crores of rupees during this election and using common sense, one can understand easily that the first priority of these candidates will be to recover the money they had spent. This would lead to corruption and more corruption. My aim is to weed this out by spending a minimum amount and campaigning for a transparent election."