Rishi Sunak, the Indian Origin politician, is among the preferred and willing candidates to replace Boris Johnson. Rishi Sunak was appointed as first Chancellor of the Exchequer of Indian heritage in February 2020.
Sunak has been tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite to take the place of the presiding incumbent Boris Johnson as the Britain Prime Minister.
According to Oddscheckers, the odds on Sunak still heads the betting at 15/8, with (Foreign Secretary). Liz Truss, the present Cabinet Minister 11/4, is the second favourite.
As per the betting results, former foreign secretary and the senior backbench MP Jermy Hunt had put up a good competition against Johnson in 2019. He is quoted at 11/1.
Sunak and Truss have been side by side for a while in opinion surveys. On 12 January 2021, Johnson tendered an apology for his appearance at a drinks party during the height of Covid-19 lockdown in the UK in May 2020, at his 10 Downing Street garden.
Political commentators observed that Sunak distanced himself from Johnson. He tweeted in the evening that “I have been on work on #PlanFor Job; took part in meeting with MPs to discuss on energy situation of the Country.
He also favoured the PM apologise; 89 per cent of respondents did not accept his expression of repentance, while only 4 per cent supported it. The rest didn’t have an opinion.
He belongs to the East African Punjabi origin. The mother of Sunak was a pharmacist, and his father was a general practitioner then after they migrated to England. He is also married to the daughter of software giant Infosys’ founder N.R Narayan Murthy. His rise up in politics has been meteoric.
An influential body within the Conservative parliamentary party called as the 1922 Committee has to receive 54 letters from its party’s MPs (out of around 365) to call for a leadership contest. As Johnson fights to save his political career, the big question is when will such a battle take place?
