Shillong, Aug. 6: The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) in Meghalaya will seek the help of Union tribal affairs minister P.R. Kyndiah to push its demand for an increase in the state’s quota of MBBS seats in the North East Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences.

On Sunday, the students’ union stalled the MBBS entrance examinations demanding 30 per cent seats for Meghalaya students instead of the nine seats allotted out of 50.

That day, nearly 3,000 students who had come to appear for the MBBS entrance examinations from various parts of the Northeast could not take the test.

KSU volunteers, numbering around 500 and led by their president Samuel Jyrwa and the union’s general secretary, Hamlet Dohling, marched towards the gates of the four examination centres in the city and prevented the students from entering the examination centres.

The institute postponed the examinations and is yet to fix a new date. Dohling said Kyndiah would be the right person to take up the cause of the students from Meghalaya as he represents Shillong in New Delhi.

On the inconvenience caused to the students who had come from different areas of the Northeast to appear for the examinations, Dohling said the institute being located in Shillong, the KSU was asking for its genuine right to get more seats instead of the mere nine. “We do not have any ill feeling towards other students, but we are deprived of the required share of seats,” Dohling said.

He said the students’ union would also not allow the policy of reserving two out of nine seats for the faculty members of the institute

Yesterday, the union met state health minister Adviser Pariong and urged him to take up the matter with the Centre.

Last month, chief minister Donkupar Roy met Union health minister Anbumani Ramadoss and urged him to increase the state’s share of seats to 30 per cent.

The Centre, however, is yet to respond.