New Delhi: United Kingdom’s former Finance Minister of Indian origin, Rishi Sunak is pacing up towards being the next Prime Minster of Britain. His path to lead Britain will become clear if his rival candidate Penny Mordaunt is not able to garner the votes of 100 lawmakers. In such a situation, Sunak will be elected due Mordaunt’s disqualification as a potential Prime Ministerial candidate.
142 MPs support Sunak
At the moment Sunak is being backed by 142 members of the Parliament. Whereas, Mordaunt is currently being backed by only 29 MPs.
Boris Johnson withdrew
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was being looked as one of the possible candidate to replace Liz Truss after she resigned as the PM of Britain. On Saturday, Boris Johnson withdrew his name from the race of the UK’s Prime Minister.
He said that he has enough support to move on to the next phase. But he also accepted that he his far behind Rishi Sunak.
Penny Mordaunt will be disqualified if…
If Penny Mordaunt is unable to gain the support of at least 100 MPs by 2 pm (local time), Monday, Sunak will be automatically given the chair of the UK’s new Prime Minister.
According to the rules of the Conservative Party, a Prime Minster candidate should have the support of at least 100 MPs. If Mordaunt is able to do so then the fight will continue between her and Rishi Sunak. If this happens then a contest will take place between them on Friday. Here 1,70,000 Tory members will be voting online to elect one out of the two.
Rishi Sunak officially announced his candidature yesterday. He said that his aim is to fix the economy, unite the party, and ‘deliver for the country’.
Liz Truss defeated Rishi Sunak
Last month, then British Foreign Minister Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister by defeating former Indian-origin finance minister Rishi Sunak in a contest for the Conservative Party leadership. Then Truss got 57.4 percent and Sunak got 42.6 percent of the votes.