Sao Paulo's deputy mayor, Colonel Ricardo Mello Araújo of the Liberal Party (PL), says he has been left out of campaign events for Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos) in the state capital, even when Mayor Ricardo Nunes of the MDB party attends, according to the Painel column in newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, published Tuesday (25).

According to Folha, Mello Araújo has told allies he keeps being sidelined at official events for the governing coalition, even though Nunes, his running mate at City Hall, regularly appears alongside Tarcísio at these events. The report does not detail the reasons Mello Araújo cited for his exclusion, nor does it include a response from the state government or Tarcísio's campaign.

Mello Araújo is aligned with former president Jair Bolsonaro within the PL and was elected deputy mayor on Nunes' ticket in the 2024 municipal election, when the pair defeated Guilherme Boulos (Socialism and Liberty Party, Psol) and Marta Suplicy (Workers' Party, PT) in a runoff. In a July interview with the outlet Revista Oeste, he had already signaled friction with his party's leadership, confirming he had been considered for a Sao Paulo Senate bid before party president Valdemar Costa Neto and lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro chose state deputy André do Prado instead.

The episode comes amid the election race in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest electoral college. A Quaest poll cited by G1 and the news site Metrópoles shows Tarcísio with 40% of voting intentions for a first-round win in the governor's race, against 27% for former mayor Fernando Haddad (PT). In the presidential race within Sao Paulo state, a separate Quaest survey shows a statistical tie between Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) and President Lula (PT), each at 30%.

Folha is so far the only outlet to report Mello Araújo's claim of exclusion from the campaign trail, and neither Tarcísio's government nor Sao Paulo's City Hall has commented publicly on the matter.