In his new Cabinet, Nitish Kumar has paid extra attention to caste equations. The focus has been to give importance to backward castes. Just like the tickets to contest elections were distributed keeping in mind the castes, the ministers have been made in the same proportion, while also paying attention to social engineering. Those from forward castes have seen their wings clipped, and Nitish has clearly paid more attention to the voice of Lalu than his own conscience. That is why despite his best efforts, he couldn’t make Shyam Rajak a minister, who had joined his party after deserting Lalu’s. And although Lalu ji may have made his reliable Abdul Baari Siddiqui the finance minister, but instead of using the Sushil Modi formula of making him the deputy CM, he has got his son made the deputy CM. The Muslim community is not happy about it, though. At the same time, Mudrika Prasad, a prominent Yadav leader who is also RJD’s secretary, has not been made the minister. On the other hand, Jai Prakash Yadav, who has won the elections for the first time, has his brother Vijay Prakash as a minister. Lalu, who has a knack for understanding the unsaid and reading the unwritten writing on the wall, still has four seats from his quota vacant. Congress, on the other hand, has not made anyone from the backward caste a minister, and one of its seats, too, is vacant. Nitish’s social engineering is sure to get more refined in the days to come.