BHOPAL, July 6 -- Pratima Bagri, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA and state minister, appeared before a state-level scrutiny committee on Monday to argue that she belongs to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community and is not a Rajput as has been alleged.

Bagri, 37, was elected in 2023 from Raigaon, an SC-reserved seat, and later inducted into the cabinet.

The row over her caste began after Pradeep Ahirwar, president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee's SC wing, filed a petition in the Madhya Pradesh High Court, alleging that Bagri and her family had fraudulently obtained SC certificates.

Subsequently, the court directed the state government to investigate and ordered that public announcements be made in villages linked to her family, ...