Narendra Modi, India’s Prime Minister, has wished his newest United Kingdom counterpart, Rishi Sunak, on Twitter after the latter became the leader of the Conservative Party. His only challenge came from Penny Mordaunt, who could not qualify for the race after being unable to get 100 nominations from fellow British Members of Parliament. Sunak is set to replace Liz Truss, who became the UK Prime Minister with the shortest tenure in history when she quit the position on October 20, 2022.

In his tweet, Modi congratulated Sunak and called him “the ‘living bridge’ of UK Indians”, and said that he would look forward to closely working with the 42-year-old in order to transform the two countries’ ” historic ties into a modern partnership”. 

Check out his tweet right here:

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Sunak, who is the son-in-law of N.R. Narayan Murthy, the founder of Infosys, was also in contention to succeed Boris Johnson, but was defeated by Truss in the election that was held to declare the winner of the Conservative Party where Truss had received 57.4% of the votes. The Indian-orgin Prime Minister is now set to become the third Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in seven weeks.

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Although Johnson had earlier wished to contest the elections to become the Conservative Party leader again, he dramatically pulled out later, which left Mordaunt as the only serious contender to Sunak.

What is Roadmap 2030?

Roadmap 2030 is a joint initiative launched by the governments of the United Kingdom and India. The project is aimed at “revitalized and dynamic connections between our people; re-energised trade, investment and technological collaboration that improves the lives and livelihoods of our citizens; enhanced defence and security cooperation that brings a more secure Indian Ocean Region and Indo-Pacific and India-UK leadership in climate, clean energy and health that acts as a global force for good”, according to a document published by India’s Ministry of External Affairs.