• Rishi Sunak to make history as Britain's first Indian-origin Prime Minister, as Penny Mordaunt withdraws from the race

Rishi Sunak is poised to make history by becoming the UK's first British Asian prime minister.

Sunak, Britain's former chancellor of the exchequer, became the almost certain winner after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulled out of the race.

"Sunak set for Number 10 as Boris pulls out," declared a banner headline in The Times, London.

By last night, Sunak was already far in front with 140 MPs declared for him. He looked well placed to win the backing of a majority of Conservative Party MPs.

"If tomorrow, as I expect, Tory MPs overwhelmingly choose a British Indian, Rishi Sunak as their leader and our prime minister.... that is a huge moment in British history," said ITV political editor, Robert Peston.

Johnson claimed to have the backing of 100 MPs but press reports cast doubts on this and said he was only able to muster up about 50 votes. Their doubts appear to have been validated by Johnson's late night pullout from the contest even though he insisted he had enough votes to stay in the race.

By yesterday it was clear that Sunak had strong support from different factions in the Conservative Party with centrist MPs and even the extreme right-wing Suella Braverman coming out in his favour. Braverman had resigned last week from Prime Minister Liz Truss's government.

Under the rules laid down for the sudden election, the top two candidates who got the backing of 100 MPs could then move forward to the second stage of the contest where they could seek the support of around 160,000 Conservative Party members around the country.

Johnson was confident of winning if the vote went to the members around the country as they strongly back him.

British politics has turned into a theatre of the absurd in recent times and if Sunak wins, he will be the country's third British prime minister in under three months. Truss lasted for barely 44 days before being forced to resign.

Sunak is the son-in-law of Infosys founder N. R. Narayana Murthy and his wife, Akshata, is worth around a billion dollars. Earlier this year he was in a bruising controversy over his wife claiming 'non-dom' status under which she pays lower taxes in Britain. Akshata finally renounced her 'non-dom' status and paid extra tax. Sunak, via his wife, is Britain's richest politician.

Penny Mordaunt, currently the leader of the House of Commons, is still in the race to be prime minister. However, she had only 28 votes last night. She has a very slim hope that all Johnson's votes will transfer to her and take her over the 100-vote mark. This seems highly unlikely.

On the contrary, MPs like the former home secretary Priti Patel switched from Johnson to backing Sunak on Monday morning. Another politician, Nadhim Zahawi was trolled today for backing Johnson and then switching to Sunak less than an hour later.

Sunak won the MPs' vote in the contest with Truss but was conclusively defeated by her when the vote went to the rank-and-file members. It's thought that racism played a significant part in his failing to win favour with the members.

This time too, both Johnson and Mordaunt were hoping to defeat Sunak if the vote went to the members. Johnson was totally confident of his popularity across the country amongst the members.

Now, however, he's been forced to abandon his comeback bid. "Hasta la vista @BorisJohnson (Goodbye, see you later). Yesterday turned out to be the judgement day. Johnson didn't have the support he needed to make a Churchillian return to Downing Street. That dream has been terminated for now," said the BBC's Nick Robinson.