The two are poles apart. One is soft-spoken, suave and taciturn. The other is flamboyant, astute and witty. And yet the political battle lines have brought them face-to-face into the electoral arena.
As the poll-bound country watches Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi pull their parties' chariots at the hustings, much depends on what these leaders speak.
The 63-year-old Gujarat Chief Minister has certainly more experience than the Congress scion which the former amply demonstrates in his poll rallies.
His speeches are incisive, his criticism sharp and his rhetoric a fine blend of witticisms and subtle attacks.
He is careful about what he is speaking and has been avoiding references to all controversial issues.
Trying to put the past back, he is walking the extra mile to reach out to the minorities.
By doing this, Modi is facing his weakness and at least trying to work upon this. If and how much he succeeds is another matter which the battle of the ballots will decide.
At his much-touted Kanpur rally, said to have been attended by over a lakh people, Modi was at his subtle best.
Amid cheers from the crowd, Modi played on the local sentiments by saying, "The shadow of the coal scam is on Kanpur also. This pollution in Kanpur is that of coal."
He was referring to the local MP and Union Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal and his alleged role in the Rs.1.84 lakh crore coal block allocation scam.
Taking on the Congress's strongest point in the party's electoral campaign for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Modi lambasted the party for going gaga over the much-talked-about Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill.
Modi claimed that Congress-led UPA has been befooling the countrymen by passing new bills and laws.
He claimed that the Congress has been trying to hide their corruptions by such new laws passed.
Rahul Gandhi, on the contrary, is building on his emotional appeal. However hard his critics and political pundits might censure him back in Delhi, he is certainly drawing crowds in Bundelkhand.
If you look at the negatives he has in his camp - a high anti-incumbency wave, one of the severest graft taints in history and low morale of base-level party workers - you'll realise how hard and necessary it is for him to draw crowds and retain them during his rallies.
At one of his rallies in Madhya Pradesh, where he reached late by a couple of hours, an irate crowd was heard shouting "Modi lao, desh bachao" as he walked to the dais.
But the young leader is at least making two mistakes.
First, he is avoiding any reference to his biggest weakness: the graft taint that the party has on it.
After a spate of scams that have dented the party's public image beyond recognition, silence only exacerbates matters.
The Congress veep will have to invent a placating answer for all the questions in people's minds.
Secondly, he says that the BJP does politics from the comfort of "air-conditioned" rooms and the "politics of capitalists" (he said this at a rally in Sagar in Bundelkhand region on Thursday).
He is only allowing himself to be played into a saffron game plan.
While the BJP has always targeted the Congress' first family for its elitism - Modi has of late been addressing Rahul Gandhi as "Shahzada" - the young leader has to understand that not all barbs can be returned.
Moreover, when you arrive at a venue in a chopper and then drive some distance in an SUV, any reference to "air-conditioned" politics can be a self-goal.
Let's hope as the political pitch reaches a crescendo in the run-up to the 2014 General Elections, the young leader would be past his initial shortcomings and batting on a level-playing field.
Comments