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<\/p>\nCabinet minister Gillian Keegan was seen welling up as Rishi Sunak\u00a0used his Tory conference speech to describe his Indian grandfather’s joy when he joined Parliament.<\/p>\n
The Education Secretary wiped tears away from her eyes as the Prime Minister recounted how his family expressed their pride on his election as an MP.<\/p>\n
Mr Sunak used his keynote address to the Conservative gathering in Manchester to describe how Britain had ‘done a huge amount’ for his immigrant family.<\/p>\n
He told the audience how he often thinks ‘about how different our lives would be if my grandparents had not left India and East Africa all those years ago’.<\/p>\n
Mr Sunak said he was ‘proud’ to be Britain’s first British-Asian PM, but added: ‘I\u2019m even prouder that it\u2019s just not a big deal’.<\/p>\n
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Cabinet minister Gillian Keegan was seen welling up as Rishi Sunak used his Tory conference speech to describe his Indian grandfather’s joy when he joined Parliament<\/p>\n
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The Education Secretary wiped tears away from her eyes as the Prime Minister recounted how his family expressed their pride on his election as an MP<\/p>\n
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The PM was introduced onto the conference stage by his wife, Akshata Murty, and his address made frequent references to his family and his background<\/p>\n
Rishi Sunak’ maternal grandfather, Raghubir Sain Berry, was born in Ludhiana – a city in the north Indian state of Punjab.<\/p>\n
He migrated to East Africa in the early 1950s, to what is now Tanzania, before moving to Oadby, Leicestershire, in 1968.<\/p>\n
According to the Oadby and Wigston Mail, he was a customs and excise worker while in the old British territory of\u00a0Tanganyika in East Africa.<\/p>\n
He then\u00a0joined Inland Revenue at the Leicester office on his arrival to the UK.<\/p>\n
His 30 years in the civil service as a tax collector earned him an MBE on Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday honours list in 1988.<\/p>\n
‘We left Leicester well in time, but the traffic was so bad that we arrived at the Palace with only 15 minutes to spare,’ he said as he described a near-disastrous journey to Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.<\/p>\n
Raghubir was a keen tennis and bridge player after moving to Leicestershire, the newspaper said.<\/span><\/p>\n The PM was introduced onto the conference stage by his wife, Akshata Murty, and Mr Sunak’s address – his first Tory conference speech as premier – made frequent references to his family and his background.<\/p>\n ‘Never let anyone tell you that this is a racist country. It is not,’ he said.<\/p>\n ‘My story is a British story. A story about how a family can go from arriving here with little to Downing Street in three generations.<\/p>\n ‘What does the Conservative Party offer a family of immigrants?<\/p>\n ‘The chance to become Energy Secretary, Business Secretary, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, even the chance to become Prime Minister.’<\/p>\n Mr Sunak then spoke of his maternal grandfather,\u00a0Raghubir Berry, who was born in Ludhiana –\u00a0 a city in the north Indian state of Punjab – and who migrated to East Africa in the early 1950s before later moving to Britain.<\/p>\n ‘When I first became an MP, my grandfather came to Parliament to see me,’ the PM said.<\/p>\n ‘As we stood in Westminster Hall, on that floor which Disraeli and Churchill had walked across so many times, my grandfather suddenly got out his mobile phone and started to make a quick call.<\/p>\n ‘I was a new MP and I wasn\u2019t quite sure whether phones were allowed there or not.<\/p>\n ‘And I said “Nanaji, nanaji, can’t you just wait a moment”.<\/p>\n ‘He replied that he was calling the landlady he had when he had first arrived in this country:<\/p>\n ‘He said to me: “I just wanted to tell her where I was standing”.<\/p>\n ‘I am proud to be the first British-Asian Prime Minister, but you know what I\u2019m even prouder that it\u2019s just not a big deal.<\/p>\n ‘And just remember: it was the Conservative Party who made that happen, not the Labour Party.’<\/p>\n