Rishi Sunak, a politician of Indian origin in the United Kingdom, is currently leading the race for Prime Minister. His life story is quite interesting, which readers may appreciate.
Birth and Family:
Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton, Hampshire, South East England.to Indian parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak in May 1980, His parents were born in Kenya and Tanzania. Yashvir was a doctor, while his mother was a pharmacist who ran a local pharmacy.
Sunak’s ancestors hailed from the Indian province of Punjab, British India, with his grandfather immigrating to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. Rishi is the eldest of three siblings, Rishi’s younger brother Sanjay is a psychologist, and his sister Rakhi works as Head of Humanitarian, Peacebuilding, United Nations Funds and Programs at the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
Education:
He studied at Winchester College, Lincoln College, Oxford, and Stanford University. During the summer holidays, he also worked in a curry house in Southampton.
Business Career of Rishi Sunak:
Sunak did an internship at the Conservative Campaign Headquarters while studying at university. From 2001 to 2004, he worked as an analyst at an investment bank. He left to join The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI) and became a partner in September 2006. Rishi joined Theleme Partners in 2009. He also served as a director of Catamaran Ventures, an investment firm owned by his father-in-law and businessman NR Narayan Murthy.
Nomination for Prime Minister of Great Britain:
On 8 July 2022, a day after the resignation of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak announced that he would stand as a candidate in the Conservative Party leadership election to replace Boris Johnson. Conservative politicians who support Boris Johnson criticized Rishi Sunak for supporting the charge to remove the Prime Minister.
He first registered his campaign website readyforrishi.com with GoDaddy in December 2021, while ready4rishi.com registered on July 2022, two days after he resigned as chancellor.
Now he is seen as the frontrunner in the race for British Prime Minister.
Rishi Sunak’s Political Career:
In 2014, Rishi was selected, as the Conservative candidate, for Richmond (Yorks), a seat previously held by William Hague. This seat was carried by the Conservative Party, for over 100 years. That year, he chaired Policy Exchange’s Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) research unit and co-authored a report on BME communities in the UK.
In the 2015 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks). From 2015 to 2017, Rishi served on the Select Committee on Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.
He supported the EU referendum in 2016. He also wrote a report for the Center for Policy Studies supporting the creation of free ports after Brexit.
He was re-elected Member of Assembly from the same seat in the 2017 general elections. He served as Parliamentary Under Secretary from January 2018 to July 2019. Sunak supported Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.
Rishi was re-elected in the 2019 general election and was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2019, serving under Chancellor Sajid Javid. He became a member of the Privy Council in July 2019.
Following a cabinet reshuffle in February 2020, Sunak was promoted to the post of Finance Minister.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sunak presented his first budget on March 11, 2020. As the pandemic took its toll on finances, Sunak announced £30 billion in additional spending, of which £12 billion was earmarked to mitigate the economic impact of COVID.
On 17 March 2020, it announced a £330 billion emergency aid scheme for businesses and a wage subsidy scheme for employees. Three days later, Rishi announced a job retention scheme but faced backlash as an estimated 100,000 people were not eligible. The Scheme was then extended till September 2021.
Sunak introduced the £30 billion Eat Out to Help Out Scheme. However, a study at the University of Warwick found that the said scheme contributed to an increase in COVID-19 infections of between 8% and 17%.
In his March 2021 Budget, Sunak announced that the deficit had risen to £355 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year, the highest in peacetime. They raised the corporation tax from 19% earlier to 25% in 2023.
At the G7 summit in June 2021, a tax reform agreement has signed to establish a global minimum tax on multinational and online technology companies. In October 2021, the OECD signed the agreement to join the tax reform plan.
In October 2021, he presented his third budget, which added £5 billion for health research and £3 billion for technical education.
Rishi Sunak family:
Rishi Sunak got married to Akshata Murthy in August 2009. Rishi currently has two daughters. His wife Akshata, is the daughter of Indian billionaire N.R. Narayan Murthy. She works as a director at Catamaran Ventures. Apart from this, Aakshta also runs her fashion label and is one of the richest women in the UK.
