Indians back Rishi Sunak to become UK prime minister

The prospect of Rishi Sunak becoming the next British prime minister has sparked fervour in India, where some social media users are rooting for him because of his Indian Hindu ancestry.

Some are calling it possible payback for the country’s former colonisers, Persecondnews.com gathered from Indian social media sites.

Twitter user Himanshu Rawat wrote on the platform that “it would be a great moment for India” for someone with Indian roots to become prime minister of “the country who enslaved India for decades”.

The 42-year-old former UK chancellor is now one of only two candidates left in the race to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.

Mr Sunak was born in Southampton in 1980 to Indian parents who had emigrated from East Africa.

Both his grandfathers were born in undivided Punjab province in British India.

His paternal grandfather is believed to have been born in Gujranwala, now in Pakistan, while his maternal roots in the country are not known.

Both families moved to Africa before making a final move to the UK in the 1960s.

His father, Yashvir Sunak, was born and raised in the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (present-day Kenya) whereas his mother was born in erstwhile Tanganyika, now part of Tanzania.

His father was a doctor with the NHS while his mother ran a small pharmacy.

Even though his paternal ancestral roots are in Pakistan, people in India widely consider him one of their own, a proud Hindu.