If laptops could win elections, Chandrababu Naidu would be a fair bet at equalling Jyoti Basu's uninterrupted reign at the top for two decades. However, Naidu's favourite companion is of little help to him as he desperately searches for the elusive spark to light up the TDP's campaign.Two weeks into an election which he didn't want, Naidu is battling what was an expected nightmare: Campaigning isn't exactly his strong point and people are hardly in a mood to listen to him. In all his life Naidu has never led a poll campaign, basking instead in the comfort zone provided by NTR's huge charisma which propelled the TDP to power time and again.Now, when the TDP's chips are truly down, Naidu's weak points are being mercilessly exposed by the relentless campaign schedule. At one level, it is baffling that the man who till recently wielded so much clout as the United Front's convenor should look helpless in the moment of truth. A self-proclaimed votary of economic liberalisation, Naidu is unable to convincevoters that his mind is in the right place.Questions are being flung at him in sundry meetings, once he had a look of utter amazement as a cotton farmer rushed in front of the dais, opened a bottle of pesticide and drank most of it. The farmer survived but only barely, thus allowing Naidu the minor solace of not having a campaign suicide on his hands.Though sympathy is on the waning side for Naidu, he is actually carrying a fair amount of baggage which is slowing his search for victory in a crucial election. Should Naidu garner more than the 17 his party held in 1996, he would have done a world of good for himself. But should he barely touch double figures, as looks most likely, he has a big problem on hands. From then on, every move will be questioned and all decisions put under the microscope.Naidu's problems as he dashes across the State read like a list of ``must avoid'' in a PR man's catalogue. First, the TDP's fate is inextricably linked to Naidu who has none of NTR's penchant for dramatics andfiner understanding of the State's mind. The Chief Minister comes across more as an administrator comfortable with files and not a career politician who adores being among crowds. Most of Naidu's sitting MPs appear to have perfected the art of not being around in constituencies when most needed thus earning the tag of ``non-resident politicians''. In Andhra Pradesh, this is usually just a step away from temporary political oblivion. Such is the situation that a desperate Naidu threw caution to the winds and put all his eggs in one basket: He tells people they will be voting for him and not the TDP candidate. Naidu seems to be paying for the high profile he cultivated during the 18-month United Front government at the centre when he lost no chance to tell the world of his importance in the scheme of things. That is boomeranging today with people wondering what Naidu's role will be at the Centre in any dispensation in future.The United Front's national leaders hardly matter in AP. Instead, asthe core of the UF, they constitute a headache for Naidu. In a probable moment of weakness, Naidu gave the go-ahead for a set of posters to be splashed across the State showing him, Gowda and Gujral. Within days, the orders were reversed and now only a handful remain as uncomfortable reminders. Naidu's precise and forward-looking economic programme, which he evolved to an extent no other Chief Minister has done in the country, is a dud missile in the electoral arena. Naidu's power policy, privatisation of core sectors, scrapping of the prohibition and the Rs two-a-kilo schemes may all add up to good economics. But electorally, none of these makes any sense to the voter who has to deal with insensitive power cuts, scant water supply and crop failures on a regular basis. The suicides by cotton farmers came as the proverbial bolt from the blue for Naidu. Though the Chief Minister announced a series of relief measures, people in the cotton growing areas are least likely to stamp on the TDP's``bicycle''. The icing on this gloomy cake is the anti-incumbency factor threatening to inundate the TDP this time. In the 16 years of its existence, this is the strongest wave of negative feelings the TDP is facing.All of which lead to NTR, the TDP's ``ghost who walks'', who is being summoned in all forms to save the party. Almost everywhere the TDP is looking to NTR as the least provocative leader in its pantheon: A clear sign of its fortunes being on the downswing.
