Rishi Sunak emerges on top in first round of Conservative Party vote

Rishi Sunak, former finance minister of UK who has been touted as most likely to be next UK PM has topped first round of voting within the Conservative Party to elect its new leader. He got support from 88 MPs. He was followed by Penny Morduant who was a distant second with support from 67 Conservative MPs. The first round of voting has resulted in elimination of two candidates, Nadhim Zahawi and Jeremy Hunt.

Six candidates are still in the field: Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat.

Conservative Party is currently in the process of electing its new leader and thereby next UK prime minister who will succeed Boris Johnson, the current PM in caretaker role.

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In order to progress to the next round of voting, candidates vying for the Conservative Party leadership had to obtain support of at least 30 Conservative MPs. The Conservative Party has 358 MPs in the parliament.

In Wednesday's vote, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stood at third place with support from 50 MPs, Kemi Badenoch received 40 votes, Tom Tugendhat got 37 and Suella Braverman received 32 votes.

Rishi Sunak was one of the high-profile names to quit from Boris Johnson's government. The image of Johnson's government has been taking severe beating due to back-to-back scandals. What started with 'partygate' appeared to end at sacking of Tory deputy chief whip Chris Pincher who was accused of drunkenly groping men. Johnson had survived a no-confidence vote from his own party over alcohol-fuelled bashes held at his official residence just when Britain was under strict COVID lockdown.

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