Former United Kingdom Chancellor Rishi Sunak and United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are the final two candidates in the race to replace Boris Johnson as the leader of the Conservative Party and UK’s next Prime Minister. After leading every ballot so far, Sunak retained his popularity among Tory MPs and topped the fifth and final round of the leadership contest with 137 votes, while Truss came second with 113 votes on July 20.
While Sunak emerged victorious in the leadership ballot among Tory MPs, he faces a tough challenge in gaining the support of the Conservative Party’s rank and file that will over the next month select the future PM, and so far seem to favor his rival, Liz Truss.
Who is Rishi Sunak?
Sunak, whose exit from the cabinet on July 5 marked the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson’s government, said he “is the only candidate” who can beat the Labour party in the next general elections.
According to The Indian Express, The 42-year-old Tory MP was born in the UK’s Southampton to Indian-origin parents. His father was a general practitioner for the National Health Service (NHS) and his mother ran a local pharmacy. His grandparents were born in Punjab and had migrated to East Africa, before moving to Britain in the 1960s.
Sunak studied at the prestigious Oxford University and Stanford University where he obtained his MBA. He then went on to work as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and various hedge funds. In 2009 Sunak married Akshata Murty, the heir of Narayan Murthy, the billionaire owner of Infosys.
Sunak’s political career began in 2015 when he was elected the Conservative MP for Richmond, Yorkshire. An early supporter of Brexit, his career was catapulted when he was made a junior minister in former UK PM Theresa May’s government. Sunak, who backed Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership election in 2019, was rewarded with the post of Chief Secretary to the Treasury that year. After a cabinet reshuffle in February 2020, Sunak was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post that lies third in the ministerial ranking, placed only behind deputy prime minister and prime minister.
How do Indians feel about Rishi Sunak?
If Mr. Sunak is elected as the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, he will become the sixth person of Indian descent to hold the highest position in a country other than India. Coupling this along with other persons of Indian and Hindu descent that hold positions of power in many Fortune 500 companies, one may say that it seems like Indians and Hindus run everything except their own country!
All jokes aside, Sunak has never shied away from his heritage and I think that’s what makes Indians across the globe want to root for him. In the year 2020, when Rishi Sunak was sworn in as Finance Minister, he took oath by placing his hand on the Bhagavad Gita. When a British newspaper asked him about this, he answered, ‘I am a citizen of Britain now but my religion is Hindu. India is my religious and cultural heritage. I can proudly say that I am a Hindu and being a Hindu is my identity’.
Road to 10 Downing Street
Sunak, whose exit from the cabinet on July 5 marked the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson’s government, said he “is the only candidate” who can beat the Labour party in the next general elections.
Sunak and Truss will now begin the final leg of their race by getting ready for weeks of countrywide hustings, where they will try to convince the grassroots Conservative Party members to vote for them. Hustings are meetings where candidates debate policies and answer questions from the audience. The Guardian reports that there will be a total of 12 hustings, with the first taking place in Leeds on July 28.
The estimated 160,000 party members will vote for their preferred candidate by September 2, either by online voting or by post and the BBC reports they are expected to receive their ballots by August 1.
