King Charles III appoints Rishi Sunak as UK PM in historic move

King Charles III officially appointed Rishi Sunak, the British-Asian leader of the Conservative Party, as UK’s first ever Prime Minister of Indian origin on Tuesday, October 25.

The BBC confirmed Sunak’s appointment after he met with the monarch in 1844 Room in Buckingham Palace, making him UK’s 57th prime minister and the third this year alone, after outgoing pm Liz Truss resigned; he is also the youngest UK PM in two centuries at 42.

The outlet described the meeting, between Sunak and King Charles as a ‘symbolic handover of power, in a mix of ceremony and political pragmatism… against a backdrop of huge political turmoil’.

King Charles’ first official meeting with the new PM is a long-held tradition and a key constitutional role of the monarch in Britain; the late Queen Elizabeth carried out this duty until her last days, meeting and appointing Liz Truss as PM just two days before her death on September 8, 2022.

The moment was not just historic for Sunak as the first British-Asian PM of the UK, but also marked King Charles’ first official appointment since assuming the throne after his mother’s death last month.