On India’s 75th Independence year, Indian-origin & Pakistan-origin ministers abandon a British PM: ‘How very ironic’

• Shubham
• 06 July, 2022

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By: Shubham Ghosh

BRITISH prime minister Boris Johnson has found himself in a spot again after two senior cabinet members of his government stepped down on Tuesday (5) in the form of chancellor of exchequer Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid.

The resignations saw reactions coming from India, a country which is set to complete 75 years of its independence from British rule next month. Jairam Ramesh, a senior leader of India’s century-old Indian National Congress and a former central minister, took a dig at the bealeagured Johnson over the resignations saying it was ironic that the first serious blows to Johnson’s tenure as the British PM came from the resignations of two ministers who are of Indian and Pakistani-origin, respectively.

“How very ironic that the first serious blows to BoJo’s tenure as UK’s PM have come from the resignations of an Indian-origin Minister and a Pakistani-origin Minister!” Ramesh tweeted.

How very ironic that the first serious blows to BoJo's tenure as UK’s PM have come from the resignations of an Indian-origin Minister and a Pakistani-origin Minister!

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 5, 2022

Sunak, who was born in the UK’s Southampton to British-Indian parents, studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University and was a Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University where he studied MBA. He is married to Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, and is called India’s ‘son-in-law’.

Javid, on the other hand, is a second-generation immigrant whose parents reached Britain from Pakistan. His father, Abdul Ghani, was a worker in a cotton mill and then drove a bus. Javid was born in Rochdale and later moved to Bristol with his family and went on to study economics and politics at Exeter.

The exit of Sunak and Javid have pushed Johnson’s premiership to the brink even as he has been battling to remain in office and appointed Nadhim Zahawi as his new finance minister. The latest blow comes just a month after the prime minister survived a no-confidence vote of the Conservative lawmakers.