Rishi Sunak: What you need to know about UK’s new PM

Forty-two years old former finance minister is the first premier of Indian origin in Britain’s history

LONDON:

Rishi Sunak has won the Tory leadership race to become the United Kingdom’s next prime minister, the first person of Indian origin in the country’s history.

He replaces Liz Truss – the shortest-serving UK PM – who resigned last week after just 44 days in the role. She was brought down by her economic programme which roiled financial markets, pushed up living costs for voters and enraged much of her own party

Sunak, the 42-year-old former finance minister, will become Britain's third prime minister in less than two months.

Boris Johnson, who was ousted as prime minister by his lawmakers in July, was aiming to make what would have been an extraordinary political comeback, before quitting the race.

Also read: Rishi Sunak becomes UK’s first Indian-origin prime minister

Sunak, one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, will become prime minister when invited to form a government by King Charles.

A former Goldman Sachs analyst, Sunak will be the United Kingdom's first prime minister of Indian origin.

Sunak's family migrated in the 1960s to Britain, which ruled India for about 200 years before the South Asian country gained independence in 1947 after a long struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Sunak is the son-in-law of Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murthy, founder of Indian outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd.

Revelations that Sunak's wife Akshata Murthy, an Indian citizen, had not been paying British tax on her foreign income through her "non-domiciled" status – available to foreign nationals who do not see Britain as their permanent home – hurt Sunak ahead of his race against Truss in the summer.

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Murthy, who owns a 0.9% stake in Infosys, later said she would start to pay British tax on her global income.

She and Sunak entered The Sunday Times UK Rich List at number 222 with a reported net worth of 730 million pounds, the Sunday Times newspaper reported in May.

Sunak's colleague Braverman, currently Britain's attorney general and also in the race to succeed Johnson, was born into a Christian family of Indian origin. Her parents migrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius.

She has previously spoken about her parents, saying they came to Britain with nothing.

In 2017, Braverman posted on Facebook that her mother was awarded the British Empire Medal for 45 years of service in the National Health Service as a nurse and for voluntary work abroad.

Sunak is tasked with steering the country through an economic crisis and mounting anger among some voters.

A nationwide election need not be called for another two years, but opposition parties said voters should now be given a say.

The opposition Labour Party leads the government by more than 30 points in some opinion polls.