PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and the group of recently admitted MLAs of his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were given an audience late Monday night by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the party national president, J P Nadda.
Shah and Nadda met Sawant and the seven former Congressmen jointly but what transpired in the meeting has been kept under wraps.
The group also had a scheduled appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi but the meeting did not happen due to certain exigencies the PMO had to deal with, an official in Sawant's office said.
The chief minister and the MLAs will return to Goa by a late Monday night flight, the official added.
Seven of the eight MLAs were part of the group that met Shah and Nadda -- Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Kedar Naik, Sankalp Amonkar, Rajesh Phaldesai, Rudolf Fernandes and Delilah Lobo. The eighth, Michael Lobo could not be part of the group as he is out of the country.
BJP State president, Sadanand Tanavade and Rajya Sabha MP, Vinay Tendulkar, also attended.
Ever since the eight Congress MLAs split and merged with the BJP last Wednesday, speculation is rife that Sawant will soon effect a Cabinet reshuffle by inducting at least three -- Kamat, Sequeira and Lobo -- into his team.
Although Sawant has for the record said no decision has been taken as yet, that a Cabinet reshuffle is a quintessential corollary of such defections to the ruling party, is a matter of record in Goa.
Also, last Wednesday's development has instilled a sense of discernable unease among the existing members of the Cabinet as Sawant will have to remove some from among them to accommodate the new entrants.
The entry of the ex-Congress legislators into the BJP has buttressed the numerical strength of the Sawant-led coalition government in the 40 member House to 33. The BJP strength is 28 and in addition the government has the support of two MGP MLAs and three Independents.
