Draft:Rajeev Kumar Rai

Rajeev Kumar Rai is an Indian politician. As of 2020 he was is the National Secretary and official spokesperson of the & Indian politician and a Member of parliament (MP) from Ghosi Lok Sabha constituency Samajwadi Party.

Rai was handpicked by Akhilesh Yadav for the role as SP spokesperson. Rai and Yadav had become close friends in the mid-1990s, during Yadav's student days in Mysore. After the electoral debacle of 2009, Rai was inducted into the inner core of the party leadership. Based in Bangalore, he ran a number of educational institutions in Karnataka - eleven colleges in Bangalore and a pharmacy college. In addition to his role as National Secretary of the party, he was placed in charge of the party organization in Karnataka. He was a chief guest at the 8th Garshom Awards ceremony, held in Kuwait in 2011.

Rai was brought up to Uttar Pradesh for the 2012 Legislative Assembly election, and appeared prominently in many media outlets during the election campaign. However, he was suspended from his post as SP party secretary in 2012. Rai's removal occurred just after Yadav had been elected as the leader of SP in the UP legislature. The suspension was motivated by a statement by Rai on Aaj Tak which had angered Azam Khan, a leader of the 'old guard' within the party. Rai denied the accusations against him, and was reinstated in his posts in the party leadership after a four month period. By 2013, Rai remained identified as a member 'Team Akilesh' within the party and was selected as the SP candidate for the Ghosi seat in the 2014 Indian general election. Rai was added to the list of SP candidates replacing former parliamentarian Balkrishna Chauhan. With a declared fortune of 165.5 million Indian rupees, Rai was noted as tenth richest candidate in the impoverished eastern UP region. Rai obtained 165,887 votes (16%).

In June 2018 Rai was critically injured in a traffic accident, whilst returning to Ballia from Varanasi.