In pictures: Smiling Siddaramaiah, sombre Yeddyurappa on Karnataka campaign

In June 2014, photographer Raghu Rai famously captured “Modi in victory, Manmohan in defeat” during the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, in his pictorial book The Tale of Two: An Outgoing and An Incoming Prime Minister. Back then, Scroll.in had reported that Rai had said he was “pained” at noticing “the stark differences between the two PMs, as he sifted through the many photos taken from the two days. His photographs revealed one isolated man who looked resigned to his fate, while another spoke to his supporters with confidence and purpose.”

Like Raghu Rai, we have also noticed a striking difference in demeanour between two chief ministerial candidates—Siddaramaiah of Congress and BS Yeddyurappa of BJP—in photos tweeted by them during the current Karnataka assembly election campaign.

While we, however, would not like to draw any firm conclusions about the greater number of smiling photos tweeted by Siddaramaiah over the greater number of serious photos tweeted by Yeddyurappa, body language does tell a story. Raghu Rai could have had a point. Or, it could be attributed to nothing more than we all have our different style of posing for photographs.