Sikkim education department was left red-faced after it was forced to amend the list of successful candidates seeking admission to Sikkim Government B.Ed College at Soreng in West Sikkim following howls of protest by the vast majority of the 1,200-odd applicants for the course.

The education department had called a meeting in Gangtok on Friday with the protesting aspirants, but late Thursday night, it came out with a revised list of successful candidates. The meeting did take place, but since the aspirants were satisfied with the new list, the temperature was much cooler.

However, the aspirants took the occasion to let the education department know that, henceforth, they would be keeping a close watch on the admission processes carried out at the state government-run educational institutions since it had become evident favouritism and nepotism existed.

“In the new list, as many as 50 changes were made in the certificate of identification (COI) category. If it were only one or two, we could have passed them off as mistakes. But, 50 below par candidates being selected over deserving ones smacks of nepotism and favouritism,” said Lal Bahadur Bhujel, a spokesman for the aspirants.

Out of the 150 available seats in the state’s only government-run B.Ed college, 20 were reserved for in-service teachers, 10 for candidates without COI, three for the differently-abled and the remaining 117 for COI holders.

The Sikkim Progressive Youth Forum (SPYF), which espouses both political and social issues, too, said the fact that the new list of selected candidates had as many as 50 new names proved those seats had been “illegally allocated” in the first place.

“We congratulate those applicants who have struggled immensely to expose the scam. It is for ourselves to decide on the state of education system in Sikkim,” said the forum in a statement.

The forum had earlier written to Sikkim chief minister P. S. Tamang (Golay) and education minister Kunga Nimal Lepcha, among others, seeking their intervention to resolve the grievances of the dissatisfied candidates.

Unlike in the previous years, no entrance examinations for admission to the college had been held this year because of Covid-19, and the government had said admission would be granted on the basis of the marks secured by the candidates in the graduate and postgraduate examinations