NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to accommodate representatives of most castes in his Council of Ministers but upper castes got a dominant presence, bagging 32 of the 58 berths. Ministers from Other Backward Classes, a crucial political constituency, numbered 13.

Nine Brahmin leaders have found place in the Union cabinet, including Nitin Gadkari . Three Thakur leaders also made it, including Rajnath Singh, Jodhpur MP Gajendra Singh Thakur and Morena MP Narendra Singh Tomar. Dharmendra Pradhan remains a prominent OBC face in the cabinet, besides Modi himself.

Of the 58 MPs sworn in as ministers on Thursday, six belonged to the Scheduled Castes and four to the Scheduled Tribes, mostly from Odisha and Jharkhand. Akali Dal leader Harsimrat Kaur Badal and BJP’s Hardeep Puri were the two Sikhs while Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi was the lone Muslim to take oath.

Caste-balance continues to play a key role even as BJP maintains that the verdict of the Lok Sabha polls showed blurring of caste as a factor in voting, even in the Hindi heartland states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Presence of nine Brahmin leaders with Cabinet rank is being seen as a strong message to the community, which has strongly supported the party despite perceived reservations against appointment of Yogi Adityanath as UP CM. BJP’s Uttar Pradesh unit president Mahendra Nath Pandey has been inducted as a cabinet minister, apparently to assuage the community.

Arjun Munda’s entry as cabinet minister is yet another signalling to the tribal community in the state which goes to polls later this year. Incumbent CM in the state Raghubar Das is a non-tribal, but the party won several tribal-dominated constituencies including Dumka where its candidate defeated JMM patriarch Shibu Soren.

