Is it safe to edit the packages.config file in Visual Studio?

Question

I removed Microsoft.ApplicationInsights from my Windows Store (8.1) app, but it keeps coming back (with a yellow warning glyph) beneath "References". It doesn't seem to really cause much mayhem, but I'd still like to completely get rid of it out of this project.

When I remove the reference, it goes away, but then comes back later. Is it because of what remains behind in packages.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<packages>
  <package id="Callisto" version="1.4.0" targetFramework="win81" />
  <package id="ExifLib" version="1.6.3.0" targetFramework="win81" />
  <package id="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights" version="0.10.0-build17704" targetFramework="win81" />
  <package id="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.RuntimeTelemetry" version="0.10.0-build17704" targetFramework="win81" />
  <package id="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.WindowsStore" version="0.10.0-build17704" targetFramework="win81" />
  <package id="sqlite-net" version="1.0.8" targetFramework="win81" />
</packages>

?

If so, is it safe to strip the three references to Microsoft.ApplicationInsights directly out of packages.config?

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EDIT:

I removed the ApplicationInsights reference, stripped out the three references to ApplicationInsights from package.config, built the project (fine), closed the project, re-opened the project, and the dad-burned ApplicationInsight reference was back again (packages.config remained pristine).