London (Web Desk/Agencies): Rishi Sunak has become British prime minister on Monday after winning Conservative Party leadership race.
Sunak, one of the wealthiest politicians in Westminster, will be asked to form a government by King Charles, replacing Liz Truss, the outgoing leader who only lasted 44 days in the job.
He replaces Liz Truss, the shortest-serving UK premier, who resigned last week after just 44 days in the role.
Rishi defeated centrist politician Penny Mordaunt, who failed to get enough backing from lawmakers to enter the ballot, while his rival, the former prime minister Boris Johnson, withdrew from the contest saying he could no longer unite the party.
Sunak, the 42-year-old former finance minister, becomes Britain’s third prime minister in less than two months, tasked with restoring stability to a country reeling from years of political and economic turmoil.
Britain has been locked in a state of perma-crisis ever since it voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, unleashing a battle at Westminster over the future of the country that remains unresolved to this today.
Sunak came to national attention when, aged 39, he became finance minister under Johnson just as the Covid-19 pandemic hit Britain, developing the successful furlough scheme.
The former Goldman Sachs analyst will be the United Kingdom’s first prime minister of Indian origin.
His family migrated to Britain in the 1960s, a period when many people from Britain’s former colonies moved to the country to help it rebuild after the Second World War.
After graduating from Oxford University, he went to Stanford University where he met his wife Akshata Murthy, whose father is Indian billionaire NR Narayana Murthy, founder of outsourcing giant Infosys Ltd.