Thirty-eight-year-old Leo Varadkar has been elected as the youngest prime minister of Ireland. He defeated Simon Coveney in a close contest to become the first ethnic minority prime minister of the country. Leo Varadkar's family is originally from Varad village of Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra. His father, a doctor himself, met Miriam, an Irish nurse in Britain, and shifted to Ireland after marrying her. Leo was born on January 18, 1979. He is a qualified doctor from the Trinity College in Dublin.
Leo Varadkar had last visited his hometown in Maharashtra in 2011 when he was the sports minister of Ireland.
“Leo was a brilliant, extremely curious child and visited India frequently then,” Shubhada Varadkar, his cousin from Mumbai, says. “He had asked a lot many questions about India and when I presented him a copy of Discovery of India by Pandit Nehru, he read it with a great appetite for knowledge.” According to her, Leo was always passionate about politics and welfare, and had started actively working for the Fine Gael party during his college days. He was first elected to Parliament in 2007, and has held many important portfolios since then.
“We had visited him a couple of years ago and he had spared some time to personally take me around Dublin,” Shubhada remembers. “He took us to his college and also showed us the official residence of the prime minister of Ireland.” She added that she had asked Leo whether he will be occupying the PM's official residence someday and they all had laughed.
“Today, I feel so happy and proud,” she said. Leo is the first person with origins in Maharashtra to head a nation. “Economic prosperity and political stability, especially after Brexit will be his top priorities,” said Shubhada.
