Hello,
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But I suspect whether removing these references would affect the proper functioning of the app. Is there any benefit in removing these unused references?
Generally speaking, no , there is no big effect if you removing these unused references. The runtime won't load a referenced assembly until it is actually needed. But you could make a try if you would like to. Please remember to keep a backup before you clean the references.
whether the "Create App Packages" command of visual studio removes these unused references for me while creating the packages.
No, it won't.
Thank you.