Indian-origin Rishi Sunak In Race to Become Next UK PM After Boris Exit

Indian-origin Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister, one of the leaders from the Conservative Party in the race for UK PM. Sunak submitted his resignation on Tuesday.

After a series of resignations in the UK government, Boris Johnson announced his resignation as Conservative party leader, acknowledging that it was clearly the will of his party that he should go after he lost the support of his ministers and most Conservative lawmakers following a series of scandals. 

"It is clearly the will of the parliamentary Conservative party that there should be a new leader of that party, and therefore a new prime minister," said Johnson outside 10 Downing Street on Thursday.

He will remain as prime minister until a successor is chosen. The process of electing a new leader will be completed by the time of the Conservative Party conference, scheduled for October.

Who is Rishi Sunak?

Rishi Sunak, 42, could become the first Indian-origin UK prime minister. He is the son of a pharmacist mother and a National Health Service (NHS) general practitioner (GP) father, who was born in the UK. He is an Oxford University and Stanford graduate.

He is married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy and the couple is blessed with two young daughters, Krishna and Anoushka.

He became an MP in 2015. He was elected from Richmond, Yorkshire. Later, he rose through the Conservative party ranks and backed calls for 'Brexit'. He was one of the supporters of Boris Johnson during his 'leave EU' campaign.

In February 2020 he was appointed to the most important UK Cabinet post - The Chancellor of the Exchequer. He became popular with his economic package to aid businesses and employees. The package included a jobs retention programme, which reportedly prevented mass unemployment in UK.