When is it alright to bribe?

After assembly elections in Karnataka on 12 May, in which no party got absolute majority the governor invited BS Yeddyurappa, leader of the largest party, the BJP, with 104, out of a total of 224 seats, to form the government and gave him 15 days to prove his majority on the floor of the house. In his letter to the governor Mr Yeddyurappa apparently claimed that he had the support of 111 MLAs.  The Congress immediately alleged that the governor was colluding with the BJP by giving them 15 days to engineer defections from other parties."Governor invites Mr Yeddyurappa to manufacture a majority in 15 days. Governor gives Mr Yeddyurappa 15 days to convert the number 104 into 111," said Mr Chidambaram.  Mr Kumarswamy of the JD(S) claimed that the BJP was offering Rs 1 billion for MLAs to defect. The Congress claimed to have audio tapes of leaders of the BJP talking to its MLAs and their families. Not taking any chances the Congress and the JD(S) have confined their party MLAs in out of town hotels so that they do not succumb to BJP bribes. Fortunately, the Supreme Court forced a vote on 19 May and Yeddyurappa resigned before the vote could be held. Kumarswamy will be sworn in as chief minister today and MLAs will be kept confined until floor test tomorrow. Yeddyurappa has complained to the Election Commission about "grave irregularities" in conducting the polls. Entertaining yes, but what are citizens to make of this circus? The BJP lied about its support. Allegedly, it was willing to pay huge sums as bribes to induce MLAs of other parties to defect. Obviously, this money was going to be paid in cash, or black money, and not by cheque. The BJP is the party of the Prime Minister, who is on a crusade against black money, and accused the entire nation of being corrupt when he withdrew high denomination bank notes without warning in November 2016. Politicians are so dishonorable that their own parties have confined them to prevent them from taking bribes. Politicians are supposed to be representative of the people so they think that the people are like them. They offer bribes in the form of cash, gifts and liquor to persuade people to vote for them. But, a study showed that bribes don't work. Others resort to extreme violence to win elections and then talk about saving democracy without any shame or embarrassment. "The significance of democracy does not lie just in the act of voting somebody to power, but in the way that power is exercised by those elected," wrote Prof S Sarukkai. "By reducing democracy to this singular act, we have managed to build a society that is fundamentally undemocratic." They tell us not to use cars to reduce pollution even though they go about in convoys of 10-20 cars, but when people protest against poisoning of ground water by a copper plant in Tamil Nadu they are shot dead, including children. Power is extremely lucrative. They have it.