Rise of Rishi Sunak: Will he be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom?

Britain’s former chancellor Rishi Sunak is leading the race to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom. The Indian-origin leader has cemented his lead over four other rivals and has gained a sufficient lead in the first two rounds of voting.

Apart from former chancellor Rishi Sunak, the other hopefuls are Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss, Chairman of foreign affairs committee Tom Tugendhat and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

In the first round, Sunak secured 88 votes followed by Trade minister Penny Mordaunt at 67. Meanwhile, in the second round, Sunak maintained the lead with 101 votes followed by Mordaunt at 83 votes.

Sunak who is the son-in-law of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy is widely expected to make it to the final two candidates to be put to the party membership.

However despite the numbers on Sunak’s side, a snap YouGov poll of the Tory party has found that Trade minister Penny Mordaunt has a higher chance of winning the race than Sunak. Polls further suggest how Mordaunt is the bookie's favourite to be the next prime minister of the United Kingdom. Betting odds claim that Mordaunt has a 50 per centchance of winning the election compared to Sunak at 34.7 per cent.

Until the past few months, Sunak was seen as the frontrunner to succeed Johnson but his popularity has taken a hit after he introduced several policies like national insurance rise which went down with the Tory MPs. Apart from this, the revelation that his wife the multimillionaire Akshata Murthy held non-domicile status which helped her evade paying UK tax was also brought to the table. However, this particular issue was raised by Sunak in the second round of televised debate where he asserted how he was proud of Murthy’s family and all that they have achieved.

So far there have been two rounds of voting and two televised debates out of which Sunak and Truss have emerged as front runners with Penny Mordaunt placed at third. The last televised debate saw some of the fiercest clashes between Sunak and Truss whose divisions on the economy and ways and means to combat inflation were laid bare.

Meanwhile, there have also been reports that have emerged on how Boris Johnson has privately told Tories to back anyone but Rishi Sunak for the country’s top post.

Despite mud-slinging and backbiting, the United Kingdom will have its new prime minister on September 5.

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