The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has rejected Joshi's candidate, B Ganguly, for the job. A director of school education with the Department of Education, Uttar Pradesh, Ganguly was selected from a panel which included N Balasubramaniam, Director, Academics, CBSE. Ganguly, according to the DoPT, does not have the requisite three years of experience at conducting examinations.

But Joshi has sent back his name to the Prime Minister's Office with a note that Ganguly is a ``deserving candidate'', regardless of the technicalities, and should be appointed. Ganguly was selectedby a panel headed by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan director and former secretary, HRD, J Veeraraghavan. Ganguly has been an associate of Khandelwal since his days in the Uttar Pradesh Education Service.

Khandelwal, who is now on his third extension, was appointed chairman of the second-oldest board which has over 4,500 schools affiliated to it and is a former student of Joshi at Allahabad University. He has been CBSE chairman since 1994, a fact Joshi has cited as evidence that Khandelwal is not ``his'' man, and has been holding additional charge as director of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration since January this year.

Joshi is also said to have sent to the PMO his nominee for the National Council of Teachers' Education, N Maheshwari, who is currently on a month's extension as Joint Director of National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). But his candidate to replace Maheshwari, R K Dikshit, was reportedly rejected for being ``too junior''.