The race to 10 Downing Street narrowed down to the final two candidates as Rishi Sunak raced ahead with 137 votes. After elimination of number 3 candidate and Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt on Wednesday, Liz Truss is the only remaining rival in Sunak’s way to becoming UK’s first Indian-origin PM.
In the race to succeed Boris Johnson, Sunak led the fifth and final round of voting of Tory MPs with 137 votes, followed by Liz Truss at 113 votes while Mordaunt was knocked out of the race after coming in third with 105 votes.
The 42-year-old British Indian former Chancellor will now face UK’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in a live televised debate on Monday in their first head-on showdown.
What are Rishi Sunak’s chances of becoming the next UK PM?
Sunak being the out-and-out leader in the voting phase may give the impression that he has more chances than Truss of making it to the 10 Downing Street. But while his popularity in the Conservative parliamentary party cannot be denied, he does not mirror the favourability when it comes to the wider membership base of the party.
When it comes to the choice of the wider Conservative party membership which will eventually decide the UK’s next PM, Truss appears to carry more weight.
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As per the most recent YouGov survey of 725 Conservative Party members, Truss at 54 percent enjoys a significant lead over Sunak at 35 percent. In fact, the polls showed that the eliminated contender Mordaunt would have also beaten Sunak by 51 percent to 37 percent.
Another setback to Sunak’s chances could come from the decision of the Conservative Campaign Headquarters to send the ballot papers to party membership early next month with most of the election campaigning still incomplete. The focus now shifts to campaigning by Sunak and Truss to woo voters, in which the Indian-origin PM contender has ground to make up.
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(With inputs from PTI)
