Son-in-law of Infosys’s Murthy named UK finance minister

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s promotion of Rishi Sunaq, son-in-law of Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, to Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) on Thursday places PIOs in two of Britain’s Great Offices of State, the other being Priti Patel who remains home secretary after Johnson’s first post-Brexit cabinet reshuffle.

There are now a total of four PIOs in Johnson’s cabinet. Reading MP Alok Sharma (52) has been promoted to secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, and ex-barrister Suella Braverman (39) has been appointed attorney general, the government’s most senior law officer.

Sunak was promoted to chancellor following Pakistan-origin Sajid Javid’s dramatic resignation from the post on Thursday. The chancellor has overall responsibility for the work of the Treasury and is considered to the second-most powerful role in government.

The four Great Offices of State are that of the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary and home secretary.

Sunak, who was previously Javid’s number two as chief secretary to the Treasury, will now move into his former boss’s home at Number 11, Downing Street. He has less than a month to deliver his first Budget on March 11. The pound jumped to a two-month high against the euro as financial markets embraced the news, predicting his policies and his cordial relations with No. 10 would boost growth.

The 39-year-old ex-banker and self-made millionaire, who voted “Leave” in the EU referendum, has been considered a rising star in the Tory party for some time and has frequently been making media appearances to talk up the case for Brexit.

The son of a Pakistani bus driver, Javid quit after Johnson told him he wanted to replace the Treasury special advisers with people from Number 10 and asked him to sack all his advisers, which he refused.

A Conservative Indian source said: “Even when Boris was mayor he put his own people around him. He wants people that are 100% behind him and his vision of Brexit. Sajid Javid’s office has been leaking stuff and going against the government brief. Javid has been giving interviews to the media saying Brexit will be difficult. Boris wants people that will go to the EU and tell them what we are going to do. Rishi has been much more optimistic about Brexit and more methodical about assessing its impact.”

Last August Sonia Khan, Javid’s media adviser, was sacked by Boris Johnson’s chief advisor, Dominic Cummings, and marched out of Downing Street by an armed police officer. Javid was at the time unaware of the dismissal. Javid became known as “Chancellor in Name Only” and No. 10 was frequently bypassing him to deal with Sunak. Javid is now the shortest-serving Chancellor since 1970 who has earned the dubious distinction of having never presented a Budget.

Born in Southampton, the son of G P Yashvir and pharmacist mother Usha, Sunak spent his professional career working for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund. He co-founded an investment fund and used that experience to help small and entrepreneurial British companies grow.

Sunak’s grandparents moved from Punjab to East Africa and then to the UK. Born in the UK, he was the first Indian-origin head boy at Winchester College and is an Oxford graduate. He was a Fulbright scholar at Stanford University in the US where he met his wife, Akshata Murthy, who he married in Bengaluru and with whom he has two daughters. He has been a Conservative MP for Richmond in Yorkshire since 2015.

The UK’s first Gujarati woman MP, Priti Patel, 47, made history last July when she became the first Indian-origin MP to hold one of the Great Offices of State as home secretary. She was born in the UK to Indian parents who left Uganda shortly before Idi Amin expelled the Asian community.

Indian diplomatic sources told TOI that she was scheduled to visit India, including Gujarat, next week to get the ball rolling on post-Brexit trade talks. The home office has not confirmed the trip.

Agra-born Alok Sharma, previously secretary of state for international development, replaces former Conservative leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom, who was on Thursday sacked as business secretary. Sharma, an ex-banker, was also appointed minister for COP26, the UN’s next big climate summit, to take place in Glasgow in November. The previous president of the climate summit was sacked two weeks ago.

Ex-barrister PIO Suella Braverman, appointed as attorney general, will oversee the Crown Prosecution Service. Her parents immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius. She grew up in Wembley and studied law at Cambridge. As a backbencher she was head of the European Research Group, an influential group of Conservative MPs that campaigned for the UK to leave the EU.

“Alok Sharma has been building links with Commonwealth countries and is seen as much more of a business person than anyone else. The UK plans to increase trade with Commonwealth countries after Brexit and Alok has been working with companies developing climate change solutions and technology,” the source added.



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