Varadkar to be Irish PM, village rejoices

Mumbai, June 3

As soon as the news broke that Leo Varadkar is set to become the next Prime Minister of Ireland, residents of Varad in Maharashtra, his ancestral village, started celebrating.

Leo, 38, is an Indian immigrant’s son and came out as gay in 2015. He is set to be the next Irish PM after he was yesterday voted leader of the country’s main ruling party.

His father, Ashok Varadkar, traces his roots to Varad, a village having a population of nearly 3,500 in Sindhudurg district’s Malvan tehsil, around 550 km south of Mumbai.

Ashok is Mumbai-born and went to the UK after completing his MBBS. He married an Irish woman there. But for the villagers, Leo and his doctor father are not merely a part of their memory, but they are very much attached to the Varadkars, a local resident claimed.

They are keen on inviting Dublin-born Leo to their village where his father built a home two years back. “We know Ashok and his wife as they were here two years back. They even helped some students, bought books for local schools. Now we want Leo to visit Varad once as he has not yet seen his ancestral village,” Victor Dantes, a resident of Varad village, said.

“I’m regularly in touch with Ashok, as I helped him when he was building his home in Varad,” he claimed. “Ashok still speaks fluent Marathi and he also uses some Malvani words while talking to us,” he said. Malvani is a dialect of Marathi language named after Malvan tehsil of coastal region.

Ashok Kalaskar, who is a local BJP leader, said, “The Varadkars are a huge family as Ashok has some eight brothers and sisters. Many of the Varadkars come to Malvan from time to time. We all are very happy for Leo and his success,” Kalaskar said.

Notably, while Leo’s feat made his family members proud in Maharashtra, the Costa family in Margao village of Goa also had its share of proud moment after Antonio Costa became the PM of Portugal.

Costa, who is of Indian origin, visited his ancestral house in January this year during his tour of India. He has roots in Goa, which was ruled by Portugal till 1961. — PTI