Former finance minister Rishi Sunak, who lost the contest against Liz Truss in September this year to replace Boris Johnson as Britain’s PM, is set to take over as the next Prime Minister after his rival Penny Mordaunt failed to earn the backing of 100 MPs which is a prerequisite for entering the PM race and bowed out of the race.
King Charles will now ask Sunak, one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, to form a government. The former Goldman Sachs analyst will be the United Kingdom’s first prime minister of Indian origin.
Sunak’s Rise as PM is a historic landmark as the Hindu descendant of immigrants from Britain’s old empire in India and East Africa will take charge of the world’s fifth largest economy.
Early Life & Education
Sunak was born in 1980 in Southampton while his grandparents hail from India’s Punjab and emigrated to Britain from eastern Africa in the 1960s when trouble brewed in East Africa against Indians.
He did a degree in Philosophy from the Winchester college and then went on pursue Politics and Economic at the Oxford University followed by an MBA degree from Stanford.
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Sunak is married to Akshata Murty, daughter of the Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murthy. The couple tied the knot in 2009 and have two daughters.
Political Innings
He was elected from the Richmond (Yorkshire) constituency in 2015. He swears his oath of allegiance as an MP on the Bhagavad Gita. Before entering into politics, Rishi Sunak was an analyst at investment bank Goldman Sachs. Sunak then moved into hedge funds by becoming a partner at the Children’s Investment (TCI) Fund.
Roles in Government
The 42-year-old has had various roles in the government up till now. He was the Junior minister for local government in the year 2018-19. He then became the chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019-20. Sunak then went on to become the chancellor of the exchequer in the year 2020-22.
Sunak came to national attention when he became finance minister under Johnson just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit Britain. He won a lot of praise for rapidly introducing ‘furlough’ support schemes worth billions of pounds to preserve jobs and businesses during 18 months of Covid lockdowns.
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