Rishi Sunak quizzed on wife Akshata Murtys stake in Infosys, firms Russia link

Rishi Sunak, UK’s Minister
of the Exchequer, is facing questions about his wife’s stake in an Indian multinational
firm that has continued to run from Russia at a time many private firms have
refused to do business with Vladimir Putin’s regime. Questions were asked of
Sunak after he urged firms in the UK to pull out of Russia to inflict pain on
Moscow.

Sunak’s wife
Akshata Murty, who is the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayan Murty. The
company whose links to Russia are in question is Infosys, one of India’s
premier software companies that largely drove the country’s information
technology boom. Infosys was co-founded by Narayan Murty in 1981. Narayan Murty
retired from firm responsibilities in 2014.

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Akshata Murty owns
a 0.9% stake in the company, according to a BBC report. A spokesperson for Rishi
Sunak said Akshata does not hold any operational control over the company.

Meanwhile, a
spokesperson for Akshata said she was only “one of thousands of minority
shareholders of the company.” “It is a public company and neither her nor any
other member of the family have any involvement in the operational decisions of
the company,” the spokesperson said.

With regard to the
firm’s operations in Russia, Infosys says it had a “small team of employees
based in Russia” that services our “global clients locally.” “We do not have
any active business relationships with local Russian enterprises. Infosys
supports and advocates peace between Russia and Ukraine,” the firm said.

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Infosys has been
linked to Alfa Bank in the past. Alfa Bank is one of Russia’s biggest financial
institutions which was added to UK’s sanctions list Thursday.       

India is one of
the few nations that has not jumped on the West-backed sanctions bandwagon
against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. India and Russia have a close foreign
policy partnership. Further, much of India’s defence supplies come from Russia.
India has remained steadfast that it does not seek to take the kind of action the
Western powers are taking.