GOA Chief Minister Pramod Sawant met Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai on Thursday morning amid talk of a Cabinet reshuffle in the wake of eight Congress MLAs joining the ruling BJP.

The Chief Minister, however, told reporters here that the meeting, which followed Wednesday’s dramatic developments, had nothing to do with politics. He met the Governor at Raj Bhawan to discuss programmes for the celebration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday, Sawant said. But a senior BJP leader said a reshuffle was likely in the next few days as the party would need to accommodate at least a couple of Congress MLAs who have crossed over, including former Chief Minister Digambar Kamat. The BJP now has 28 MLAs in the 40-member Assembly after eight Congress MLAs switched sides on Wednesday.

Goa Speaker says he has accepted merger of CLP into BJP: GOA Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Thursday said he had accepted the merger of the state Congress Legislature Party (CLP) into the ruling BJP.

Eight out of 11 Congress MLAs on Wednesday passed a resolution to merge the legislature party into the BJP.