Narayana Murthy's son-in-law to contest UK elections on Conservative ticket

Rishi Sunak is married to Murthy's daughter Akshata

Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy had shunned an opportunity to join politics long ago, but another member of his immediate family is making his debut in active politics, though not in India. Murthy’s son-in-law, Rishi Sunak, was recently declared the Conservative party candidate for the Richmond, North Yorkshire seat for the UK general elections in May next year.

Sunak is married to Murthy’s daughter, Akshata. He had met her when they were both doing their MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was a Fulbright scholar. They got married in August 2009 in Bengaluru and lived in the US before shifting to the UK, where Sunak’s father worked as a general practitioner with the National Health Service and his mother ran a local chemist shop.

“I grew up watching my parents serve our local community with dedication… As an MP, I want to make that same positive difference to people,” Sunak, also an alumnus of Oxford University, says on his website.

The Richmond seat was previously held by William Hague, the former foreign secretary, who stepped down from the post in July and will not be contesting elections again.

When contacted, Murthy declined to comment on the development. However, in an interview with Business Standard in May 2010, he had said he had declined an offer by the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to join the government. He did so because he was never keen to take up public roles. Besides, rumours of he being considered as a candidate for the President’s office also surfaced on many occasions but were never proved to be true.

“I was offered a position in 1999 by Sri Vajpayee, but I was not interested. First of all, we were taking the company to Nasdaq at that time. Second, I don’t know whether I can succeed in an environment where people are not disciplined; where people don’t believe in meritocracy and where people put their own interests ahead of the societal interest,” he had said. “There are many people who can work in this environment, but I am not one of those.”

Sunak (34), who is contesting the British general election for a parliamentary seat, has worked with The Childrens Investment Fund, an activist investment fund (it sold its stake in Coal India in October, two years after it sued the company’s directors and the Indian government for violating international treaties and not protecting the interests of minority shareholders), and the Theleme Fund, a global equity hedge fund launched by a TCI founder.

Sunak is also a director at Catamaran Ventures, the Murthy family investment office, as is his wife. He was also head of Black and Minority Ethnic Research Unit at Policy Exchange, a neoliberal think tank. Last year, Sunak and Akshata, who launched a clothing design company, made a donation to their alma mater’s Centre for Social Innovation, described by the centre as “a generous gift”. The couple has two children.

“He (Sunak) is very keen on establishing himself in politics, something new to the Murthys,” sources closed to the Murthy family said. “He is a second-generation British Indian. His parents, though born in Africa, worked in the UK, where Sunak was born and raised,” his website says.

As a Tory candidate, Sunak’s priorities for his constituency include backing local businesses, improving connectivity and supporting farmers, adds the website. Around 200 party supporters chose Sunak from a shortlist of four at a meeting in the constituency in October, the BBC reported.