the_category(); function is not allowing to direct change tags and attributes, get_the_category(); function return categories of posts in array so we can modify with custom html tags and attributes check out the below example code, its used in under loop of #the_loop.
[php]
//Get categories $the_postid;
$categories = get_the_category($the_postid);
if(is_array($categories)){
echo ‘<ul class="col-md-8 post-categories nlrp">’;
foreach($categories as $postcat){
$category_id = get_cat_ID( $postcat->name );
$category_link = get_category_link( $category_id);
echo ‘<li><a rel="category" href="’.esc_url($category_link).’">’.$postcat->name.'</a></li>’;
}
echo ‘</ul>’;
}
[/php]