British lawmaker Alok Sharma has been named Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), becoming the second Indian- origin minister in Prime Minister Theresa May's Cabinet.
The 48-year-old MP for Reading West, who had previously served in a special role of Infrastructure Envoy for India in the David Cameron led government, was named in the latest set of junior ministerial posts announced by Downing Street yesterday.
He was first elected to the British parliament in May 2010 and was re-elected in May 2015 from Reading West.
In his new role in the FCO, Sharma will work closely with newly-appointed foreign secretary Boris Johnson and is likely to be handed the charge of Indian affairs.
The minister who previously held the position, Hugo Swire, has resigned from the government along with Indian-origin peer Baroness Sandip Verma, who had served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for International Development (DfID) in the Cameron government.
The new Secretary of State in charge of DfID had been announced as Priti Patel last week.
While Patel had been a vocal supporter of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU), fellow Indian-origin MP Sharma had campaigned for Remain and even set up a cross-party group called British-Indians for IN.
Their presence in the Cabinet reflects May's broader attempt at balancing her Cabinet with pro and anti-Brexit campaigners as her government begins the process of the UK leaving the economic bloc.
