the goan I network
VASCO
Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who traces his roots to a town barely 60 kms from Goa, will be ushering the New Year in the State.
According to a senior police official, Varadkar will be celebrating the New Year along with his family at a beach in Goa, joining a long list of heads-of-state and high-profile personalities, who come to Goa for New Year celebrations every year.
The police official confirmed that Varadkar is on a private visit to India and arrived in Goa on Monday.
“The visit of the Ireland Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is entirely private and there are no official functions that he is likely to attend and there are no official functions planned during his personal visit to India,” said the official.
“He will be with his family in Goa till January 1. The prime minister and his family are then scheduled to fly back to his country at 3.15 pm from Dabolim Airport,” the official added.
Earlier on Sunday, Varadkar along with his family members visited his ancestral village Varad in the coastal Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra.
It was the first visit to the village for Varadkar, who became prime minister of Ireland in June 2017.
The visit was a “special moment” as three generations of his family had gathered, the Ireland prime minister said after the villagers felicitated him.
He also visited the temple of the village deity.
“I am here with my parents, my sisters and their husbands, my partner and some grandchildren...so it is a big family visit,” the Irish PM told the media.
“I am on private visit here as of now, but I would like to visit this place again in the official capacity,” Varadkar added.
Speaking to The Goan in 2017 shortly before he became the Irish PM, locals in the village said Leo’s father, Ashok, was born in Varad village of Malvan where he completed his schooling before pursuing higher education in medicine in Mumbai.
Dr Ashok then emigrated to England in 1960 and later in 1973, married a nurse, Miriam, in England. The couple later shifted to Dublin and have three children, two daughters, Sofia and Sonia, and a son, Leo.
Leo also studied medicine in Dublin and has had a meteoric rise in politics, after winning a seat in parliament in 2007, going on to serve as minister with several portfolios and later becoming the prime minister of Ireland in 2017.
