The freshly-anointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom appointed Indian origin British Conservative Party politician Rishi Sunak to the role of chief secretary to the Treasury under new chancellor Sajid Javid.
Rishi Sunak is the son-in-law of Indian IT company Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy.
Hampshire-born Sunak, 39, has been Member of Parliament for Richmond, Yorkshire, since 2015. He was a junior minister in the department of local government, and as the chief secretary to the Treasury, he will attend cabinet meetings.
Promotion to the of Chief Secretary to the Treasury represents huge move up for Sunak, from his previous role as a junior minister in the department of housing, local government, and communities. After the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is the third most senior ministerial position in Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury.
Besides Sunak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during full-scale reshaping of Theresa May’s government, promoted junior minister Alok Sharma to the rank of a cabinet minister with the portfolio of international development.
As the international development secretary, Sharma, 51, will be responsible for overseas British aid in a department committed to spending 0.7 percent of the UK’s national income as international aid each year. Britain has long stopped long-standing aid to India but funds some programs in selected states.
Agra-born Sharma, who is a Member of Parliament for Reading West since 2010, was the employment minister in the Theresa May government. He was one of the foremost supporters of Johnson in the recent Conservative leadership election.
When Johnson was the foreign secretary in the May government, Sharma had the junior role of parliamentary under secretary of state in the Foreign Office with responsibility for the Asia-Pacific region. He often responded on the government’s behalf in parliament on Indian issues.
The appointment of Priti Patel, Sunak, and Sharma turns out to be the first time the UK prime minister’s cabinet table will have three ministers from the 1.5 million-strong Indian community.
