Ancient philosophers of the land are quoted as saying: “Speak truth in such a way that it should be pleasing to others. Never speak truth, which is unpleasant to others. Never speak untruth, which might be pleasant. This is the path of eternal morality.” A renowned scholar has further opined that even speaking truth that hurts others amounts to speaking untruth. The land is currently abuzz with political parties leaving no stone unturned to capture the mood of citizens heading to the polling booths seeking their choice of respective contestants to represent the people and then assume charge of the government. The ongoing scene in Karnataka leading to forming its next Legislative Assembly is being visualised to set the relative strengths of the political parties and their chosen leaders later this year and early next year as some more Assemblies of States as well as the nation’s Parliament are to be formed democratically.

Citizens who are 18 years of age and above and included in the official list of voters are being exhorted to exercise their franchise as a duty and responsibility to raise their percentage in the total electorate. Given the fact that people at large have no opportunity or role in identifying their would-be representatives in the Legislative bodies, the provision of pressing the NOTA (None Of The Above) button on the EVM (Electronic Voting Machine) offers a negative role to the electorate. The ongoing free-for-all diatribe among the heavy weights of political parties finds the citizens between reality and myth, a puzzling game.

The arithmetic of democracy relating to the Legislative Assembly of Karnataka, stipulating that any one political party with 113 elected members can form the government is at the root of the cacophony that the dailies of all hues are filling their columns with catchy headings and graphic details. Every loquacious speaker of the leading political parties is virtually presenting to the public on a platter as it were the jaathaka (horoscope) of leaders of rival parties. It is for the voting public to accept the charges being mutually hurled as reality or myth. To say that their sullied track record falls into the region of reality and self-claimed good deeds (if any) falls into the region of falsehood is to be dubbed as naive.

Notwithstanding the vilification of the land’s judiciary at the level of the Apex Court, the hundreds of cases in which a large number of vote-seekers figure as criminals, committing murder, fraud, rape, graft and so on do not offer to the people a great choice of candidates to be voted as their representatives. The NOTA button is the only hope in making a right choice between reality and myth of all that the dailies are printing.