Why I vote

I was watching The Big Fight on NDTV 24x7 which debated why urban and young voters seem to shy away from voting. Most of the respondents had one of the following two opinions: either they voted because they strongly felt they could make a "difference", or they didn't vote because they were too cynical, and who thinks one vote can change anything anyway?

To me, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. No one can be so naive to believe that one single vote among lakhs can really change a great deal of things as long as we have only the "first past the post system". At the same time, one cannot afford to be so pessimistic as to believe that it doesn't have the possibility of contributing in some small way either.

The reason I vote is that even though I don't think my own vote can make a difference, I think it could make 1/nth of the difference, where 'n' is the kind of number that my favoured candidate gets, thereby ensuring his win. I can only hope that perhaps the rest of the (n-1) guys showed up and put in their 1/nth quantas each. That's what makes me go to vote (I'm lucky to have voted in both the "chappa" days (just made it) and in the electronic age!) - perhaps some day we will have changed something (implicit in this argument is that I consider myself enlightened enough to know who the right guy is). If not, perhaps I'd just have made a statement, if only to myself.

Somehow Cyrus Broacha is always in great demand during election times and he sheds his self-imposed clownish image to make some profound statements. Like his quote when Rajdeep Sardesai spoke about having "checks and balances" in the system. He said that that's why people get into politics, to get their cheques and improve their balances.