Cong emissary arrives, will meet dissidents today

PANAJI: Congress general secretary in charge of Goa B K Hariprasad arrived in the state on Sunday evening to assess the political situation in the wake of a proposal of its coalition partner, NCP to induct its MLA Francisco 'Mickky' Pacheco in the cabinet.
Hariprasad will to hold a meeting with dissident legislators on Monday at 11am before leaving for Delhi, sources said.
A group of five ministers and an identical number of Congress MLAs led by PWD minister Churchill Alemao have kicked up a row over the proposed induction, threatening to bring down the Digambar Kamat government if Pacheco is reinstated.
NCP president Sharad Pawar had asked Kamat to drop two party ministers - Jose Philip D'Souza and Nilkanth Halarnkar - to induct Pacheco who had been ejected from the cabinet over the Nadia Torrado death case.
Sources said that Hariprasad attended a late evening function related to the engagement of Kamat's close kin at a city hotel.