On 29 June, Aditya Narayan announced that Aneek Dhar and Abhijeet Kosambi, the winners of the regional spinoffs of "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Bangla" and "Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Marathi", would be getting direct entry as a Top 14 finalist. This was a pre decided qualification as it was a part of their respective prizes of winning the regional contests. The viewers of Marathi and Bangla had already seen and heard this announcement at live telecast on stage when Abhijeet Kosambi and Aneek Dhar had won the respective competitions, so in fact there was no need for any controversy in that case. Yet the mentors did not approve of this saying they should not be allowed to enter the competition in the middle and that they should have come from the beginning. Ismail Darbar tried to walk away from the show stalling the shooting of the program.