With seven ministers, Yadavs call shots in Nitish cabinet

PATNA: One in four ministers in Nitish Kumar cabinet is a Yadav. Out of 28 cabinet ministers who took oath of office on Friday, seven belong to Yadav community.
A caste analysis of Team Nitish shows that altogether 15 ministers belong to backward castes, five to scheduled castes, four are Muslims and another four belong to upper castes.
Among the 15 backwards castes ministers, seven hail from the dominant Yadav caste, three are Kushwaha, two Kurmi and three from extremely backward caste (EBC) category.Out of three EBCs, two hail from Kewat/Mallah caste and one from Nonia community. CM Nitish hails from Kurmi caste.
Out of four upper castes ministers, two (Jai Kumar Singh and Awadhesh Kumar Singh) belong to Rajput community, one (Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh) hails from Bhumihar community and one (Madan Mohan Jha of Congress) is a Brahmin. Another prominent Bhumihar leader Vijay Kumar Choudhary is tipped to be the assembly Speaker.
Among the seven Yadav ministers, six hail from RJD and only one from Nitish Kumar-led JD(U). The six RJD’s Yadav ministers are Lalu’s two sons Tejashwi Prasad Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav, Chandrika Rai, Ram Vichar Rai, Chandrashekhar, Vijay Prakash. Vijendra Prasad Yadav is the only Yadav minister from JD(U).
Of the four Muslim ministers, Abdul Bari Siddiqui and Abdul Ghafoor are from the RJD, Khurshid from JD(U) and Abdul Jalil Mastan from the Congress. Among the three Kushwahas, Kumari Manju Verma and Krishanandan Verma are from JD(U) and Alok Kumar Mehta from the RJD. Both Kurmi ministers Shravan Kumar and Shailesh Kumar belong to JD(U).
Among the five SC ministers, two (Shivchandra Ram and Muneshwar Choudhary) belong to RJD, another two (Maheshwar Hazari and Santosh Nirala) to JD(U) while Ashok Choudhary is from Congress. Of the SC ministers, two belong to Ravidas, two to Pasi and one to Paswan caste.
The prominent castes which didn’t get any representation in the new cabinet are Vaishya, Kayastha and scheduled tribe. Mahagathbandhan has three Vaishya MLAs (Samir Kumar Mahaseth, Amarnath Gami and Hem Narayan Sah) but none of them could make it to the cabinet. Another prominent Vaishya leader and RJD state president Ram Chandra Purbey was also tipped for induction as minister, but he was not in the final list.
Similarly, Congress’ Vinay Verma (Narkatiyaganj) was the lone Kayastha MLA in the Mahagathbandhan. Members of Kayastha community had petitioned Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for his elevation as a minister. But Verma failed to get a berth in the cabinet.
The two scheduled tribes (ST) seats in Bihar – Manihari and Katoria – were won by Congress’ Manohar Prasad Singh and RJD’s Sweety Seema Hembrom. But none of them could get a berth in the Nitish cabinet.