Conservation party leader Rishi Sunak became the first Indian-origin UK prime minister, taking over from Liz Truss, who resigned from the post last week. The 42-year-old former chancellor was elected unopposed as the new leader of the governing Conservative Party, following Penny Mordaunt’s withdrawal from the race.
Sir Graham Brady, chair of the influential 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, announced in the Parliament complex that he had received only one nomination and therefore Sunak is the winner of the leadership contest. Sunak will be the third Conservative Party prime minister in seven weeks after Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.
Conservative party chairman Jake Berry called on Tory leaders to extend their wholehearted support to Sunak saying, “Now is the time for the whole party to come together and unite four-square behind Rishi, as he gets on with the vital work of tackling the challenges we face as a country. The time for internal debates is well and truly over, and led by Rishi Sunak, I know we can and will deliver on the priorities of the British people.”
Former Prime Minister David Cameron congragulated Sunak in a tweet, and said he had predicted 10 years ago that Conservatives would electct the first British Indian PM.
“Huge congratulations @RishiSunak on becoming PM to lead us through challenging times. I predicted a decade ago that @Conservatives would select our first Brit Indian PM & proud today that comes to be. I wish Rishi the v best, he has my wholehearted support,” he wrote.
Rishi Sunak is the son of a pharmacist mother and a National Health Service (NHS) general practitioner father. He was born in Southhampton and his grandparents are from Punjab– they migrated from East Africa in the 1960s.
After graduating from Oxford, Sunak went to Stanford on a Fulbright scholarship. There he studied MBA. It is at Stanford that he met his wife Akshata Murty, daughter of Infosys founder Narayan Murthy. The couple got married in 2009 and have two children– Krishna and Anoushka.
Sunak has worked in firms like Goldman Sachs, The Children’s Investment Fund Management and Theleme Partners. He has also worked for Catamaran Ventures, an investment firm owned by his father-in-law.
In 2015, Sunak became a member of parliament from Richmond in Yorkshire. Sunak quickly rose through the ranks in the Conservative party. A Brexiteer, Sunak was among Boris Johnson’s supporters in his ‘leave EU’ campaign. In February 2020, Sunak was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.
While he was widely appreciated for his economic package supporting employees and businesses during the Covid pandemic, he was criticised for not providing enough cost-of-living support to households.
