Why you won't catch this man smiling

HYDERABAD: Oh for a Laloo to inject some humour into the dreary Andhra poll campaign. Chandrababu Naidu drones in a monotone, K Chandrashekhar Rao, who heads TRS, once in a while comes up with smart ones, but they hardly crackle with wit.
Congress'' Y S Rajasekhara Reddy is a powerful speaker, but alas, unfunny.
Rao tries to be smart, but ends up being vulgar.He calls his rivals "thieves" and firmly believes that Andhra Pradesh''s woes are to be blamed on Naidu''s "poker-face".
He''s cocksure Vajpayee is history. No one knows where his supreme confidence comes from. Ask him and he gives you an equation as complicated as E=MC2, one in which leaders fall like ninepins and the Congress alliance emerges on top.
He''s good with his Telangana tale and explains how the new state is only waiting for a surgeon to be delivered. "It''ll be a Caesarian section, well past delivery date."
His logic goes like this: "The Congress forms an alliance with the TRS. The Congress comes to power at the Centre. It gets a resolution passed in parliament. Telangana is born."
QED. So, while KCR believes in making a liquid diet of spicy biryani, Naidu is focused. The CM''s contempt for KCR, aka "Telugu Rambo", is clear. He refers to the TRS head only as "that man".
He looks purposeful, yet slightly off colour. He smiles, but only for the camera. He''s got rid of his habit of wagging his index finger at his listeners. Now, that single finger has been replaced by two.
His favourite gesture isn''t a wave, but two fingers standing up in the form of a V. Speechwriters can do little. Their man cracks a joke in dirge-like tones. Party regimentation sometimes has comic effects. Recently Naidu delivered an oath to his ranks.
He began: "I Nara Chandrababu Naidu..." men and women in yellow parroted: "I Nara Chandrababu Naidu..." Their leader said: "Don''t repeat my name. Say yours. It''s an oath you''re taking."
While KCR''s forever stuck on the T-word, Naidu''s pet is the D-word. A better speaker in Telugu, he hardly strays from his bijli-pani agenda.
One who''s good with numbers, he has been advised to edit them out of his speech. But Naidu isn''t a charmer. He doesn''t talk of roads as smooth as Hema Malini''s "chikna gaal".
On the other end of the spectrum is Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Congress stalwart and the most popular face of his party here. He''s a fiery speaker, but short on humour.
One of a vanishing breed of politicians who turns out in starched white dhoti, his big fixation: Indiramma Raj. His punchline: "Naidu''s the CM of Jubilee Hills."
A doctor by training, he can look earthy when he ties a turban and dapper when in pinstriped suit. But he makes Indirammaraj sound more like Ramrajya. Guess what both looked like? There''s no recall.
It''s a no contest. Judges are ready with their verdict: Laloo''s wins by yards.