Rishi Sunak, who has indicated he will not serve in a Truss cabinet, was given a hero’s welcome on Monday night when he addressed 650 members of the Conservative Friends of India at the Dhamecha Lohana community centre in Harrow.

This is a part of north London with a large Indian population – and a cricket ball’s throw from the famous public school where Jawaharlal Nehru had once been a pupil.

To good natured calls of “See you in Number 10, Downing Street,” he called back, “That’s the plan, I’m giving it everything I’ve got.”

He had come for 35 minutes but stayed for two hours so that “I can meet everyone”. In fact, almost everyone did go up on stage to take a selfie with the former chancellor.

Those who turned up were all members of the Conservative Friends of India but not necessarily of the party.

“Most are – and they have all voted for Rishi,” the organisation’s co-chair, Ameet Jogia told The Telegraph. “But not everyone is and so they haven’t been able to vote. That’s something we are working on.”

Rishi was introduced by a Tory peer, Dolar Popat, who came from Uganda as a 17-year-old and joined the Conservative party nearly 40 years ago.

Rishi paid tribute to pioneers such as Popat: “Every journey has a beginning – and I would not be standing here if it was not for the incredible work and sacrifice of those who came before me. Many of you in this room were forging a path for us to walk behind you. You have served as an inspiration for my generation of politicians in the Conservative party. You broke and shattered that glass ceiling.”

Rishi added: “We know the UK-India relationship is important. We represent the living bridge between our two countries. We are all very aware of the opportunity for the UK to sell things and do things in India, but actually we need to look at that relationship differently because there is an enormous amount that we here in the UK can learn from India.

“I want to make sure that it’s easy for our students to also travel to India and learn, that it’s also easy for our companies and Indian companies to work together because it’s not just a one-way relationship, it’s a two-way relationship, and that’s the type of change I want to bring to that relationship.”

But if the polls are anything to go by, he might need a bit of divine intervention if he is to beat the foreign secretary Liz Truss, who is said to be in the advanced stages of planning her cabinet – and receiving conflicting advice on whether she should offer a post to Rishi.

Amit Mishra, a trustee of the Shree Jagannatha Society UK, gifted Rishi a set of gold-plated deities brought from India. He was accompanied by a pandit who performed a victory shloka from the Bhagavad Gita for Rishi.

Rishi had, in fact, come from an interview with Vanessa Feltz on BBC Radio 2. It was meant to be a friendly chat but she secured what has been hailed as a “scoop”.

Everything will depend on the final result but Rishi dropped a big hint he wouldn’t serve under Truss because the differences between then, especially on the economy, were too deep, as it had become with Boris Johnson.

What if she offered him the job of health secretary?

“I am not focused on all of that and I doubt Liz is,” he responded. “I am not thinking about jobs for me or anyone else. One thing I have reflected on as well a bit is being in a government, in cabinet, over the last couple of years, you really need to agree with the big things. Because it is tough, as I found, when you don’t. And I wouldn’t want to end up in a situation like that again.”

Having been chancellor, the number two position in government, any job will be a step down for Rishi. Were Truss to offer him a job – and that is still a big if – and he turned it down, he could quickly be forgotten on the backbenches.

On the other hand, if he was a minister, he would be bound by the rules of “collective cabinet responsibility” and could not openly disagree with the new prime minister. He also has to consider whether he will have another go at the leadership if Truss were to lose the 2024 general election to the Labour leader Keir Starmer, who is ahead in the polls.

Narendra Modi’s government will certainly have to start war gaming now for a possible Labour government in two years.