A fresh faultline has opened within the Samajwadi Party in Maharashtra ahead of the high-stakes municipal corporation elections, with Bhiwandi MLA Rais Kasam Shaikh accusing the party’s state leadership of authoritarian functioning and arbitrary ticket distribution in a letter to party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Though Shaikh does not name the Maharashtra state party president in the letter, the communication marks the second time he has publicly flagged differences with Abu Asim Azmi. Shaikh had threatened to resign as an MLA in April last year, before the two appeared to have reached a truce ahead of the Assembly elections, which both eventually won. The latest municipal elections, however, have once again brought the underlying rift into the open.
In the letter, Shaikh said a “tragic atmosphere” had been created within the party despite its recent electoral gains in the region. He pointed to development works worth nearly Rs 1,200 crore carried out during his tenure, which he said helped expand the party’s base beyond North Indian voters to include “Marathi, South Indian, Gujarati and Marwari communities”.
Despite these gains, Shaikh alleged that the party’s Maharashtra unit had descended into factionalism and high-handedness in the run-up to the civic polls. He accused “influential elements” within the party of launching a “well-planned campaign of misinformation” against him, including allegations of nepotism.
“By publicly levelling false allegations such as ‘nepotism’, not only has my dignity been attacked, but there has also been an attempt to tarnish my political character,” he wrote. Shaikh said that although he had withdrawn his brother Salim Shaikh’s candidature “respecting the directions of the national leadership”, “the venomous campaign” against him had continued.
He also sharply criticised the ticket distribution process, describing it as resembling the functioning of a “private limited company rather than that of a democratic party”. Loyal grassroots workers, he alleged, had been sidelined in favour of “imported faces” with no commitment to socialist ideology, a move he said had damaged the party’s credibility among voters.
In one of the strongest passages of the letter, Shaikh accused the state leadership of misusing the national president’s name to justify unilateral decisions. He quoted state leaders as publicly claiming that “the hon’ble national president has given me a free hand; I can give or deny tickets to whomever I want, there is no one above me”.
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“This is not only arrogant behaviour but also an attempt to cast doubt on the image of the top leadership,” Shaikh wrote, warning that such conduct was creating the impression that “discipline and merit no longer have any place in the party”.
The Samajwadi Party’s growth in Maharashtra has largely been shaped by Abu Asim Azmi, who led the party to its first electoral breakthrough in the state in 1995 with three Assembly seats. Though Azmi lost that election, he returned to the Assembly in 2009 and has since dictated the party’s political trajectory in the state as a three-time MLA.
An alternative face for the party emerged in 2012 with the rise of Rais Shaikh, a former public relations professional who entered electoral politics by winning the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation election from Govandi. He was re-elected as a corporator from Madanpura in South Mumbai in 2017.
Shaikh’s proximity to Azmi facilitated his rapid rise within the party, leading to his appointment as group leader and a member of the BMC Standing Committee. With his growing popularity, the party initially considered fielding him from Byculla in the Assembly elections, before political compulsions led to his candidature being shifted to Bhiwandi East.
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Shaikh was parachuted into the constituency just 15 days before polling, and with the Congress—then allied with the Samajwadi Party—fielding its own candidate, few expected him to win. After an intense two-week campaign, however, Shaikh emerged victorious, defeating sitting Shiv Sena MLA Rupesh Mhatre by a margin of 1,314 votes.
While Shaikh has cultivated an image as a media-savvy and progressive face of the party, friction with the state leadership over the party’s future direction has steadily intensified. That tension culminated in his announcement of resignation in 2024, which he later withdrew before successfully retaining his Assembly seat.
Despite his re-election, the rift has persisted. Shaikh and Azmi have largely avoided each other in public, and the MLA alleges that he has since been sidelined, with none of his supporters accommodated in the Samajwadi Party’s seat-sharing arrangements for the civic polls.