Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty, who has been targeted for months for being a non-domiciled resident of the UK who had allegedly avoided paying taxes when her husband was raising them for others as chancellor, has made her first appearance at a campaign rally.

Their daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, were present, too, on Saturday when Sunak made a speech at a tyre shop in Grantham, the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher, the patron saint of the Conservative Party.

Akshata’s wealth, inherited from her father N.R. Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys, has been used as ammunition against Sunak. The charge is that as a very rich man, he cannot possibly identify with the struggles of ordinary people.

In an article in the Daily Telegraph, Sunak had declared: “My values are Thatcherite. I believe in hard work, family and integrity. I am a Thatcherite, I am running as a Thatcherite and I will govern as a Thatcherite. I will deliver the radical set of Thatcherite reforms that will unleash growth and strengthen our society and culture.”

After his speech, some Conservative Party members said Sunak came across as “charismatic” and a “strong family man”.

Sunak said tackling the backlog in the NHS was the biggest public services emergency. This is because 6.6 million people in England are waiting for hospital treatment.

He plans to eliminate one-year waiting times by September 2024 and get overall numbers falling by next year. He argues a growing number of people are using money they cannot afford to go private.

“We need a fundamentally different approach,” he said. “We will take the best of our Covid response and apply those lessons to clearing the massive backlog in the NHS.”

Without a radically different approach, the NHS will come under unsustainable pressure and break, he says. As part of a number of measures, he is promising to offer more diagnostic services — such as MRI and CT scans — in repurposed empty High Street shops. He also wants a “vaccine-style” backlogs taskforce with the power to take action to get waiting lists down.

Although Sunak admits he is behind foreign secretary Liz Truss in the opinion polls, he has won many important endorsements, including that of former party leader Michael Howard. Writing in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, Howard explained why he was wanted Sunak to be the next Prime Minister.

He said that “economic competence is at an absolute premium. We are fortunate to have a candidate who has shown that he is capable of dealing with economic challenges and steering us through very turbulent times.

“Some of us remember the calamitous forecasts that accompanied the start of the pandemic. Unemployment was going to rise to staggering rates, millions of firms were going to shut down and the world as we knew it was about to fall down around us.

“None of this happened and Rishi Sunak is the man who deserves the credit for that achievement. Thanks to Rishi’s furlough scheme, we came through that storm and today we have unemployment at a record low.”