Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal appeared to bait the BJP on Saturday, flagging perceived fault lines that pitted Amit Shah against Yogi Adityanath, playing on Rajput insecurities and taunting Narendra Modi over his approaching retirement age.

The Aam Aadmi Party convener hit the ground running a day after being released on interim bail, granted by the Supreme Court in a corruption case to allow him to campaign for the general election.

At a “press conference” that turned into a public meeting at the party headquarters here, he claimed that re-election for Modi would mean Union home minister Shah becoming Prime Minister next year, before which Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath would be replaced.

Kejriwal, however, took care to dismiss Modi’s chances of re-election.

After worshipping at multiple temples here with wife Sunita, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and several supporters, Kejriwal arrived at the party office to a rapturous welcome from thronged supporters.

“The Prime Minister is on a dangerous mission. The name of that mission is ‘One Nation, One Leader’,” Kejriwal told them.

“Modiji wants to eliminate all the leaders of the country and is running this mission at two levels. He will send all the Opposition leaders to jail and will dispose of all the BJP leaders and end their politics.

“If they win the election — get me to write this in an affidavit —- after a few days Mamata Didi, Tejashwi Yadav, Stalin Saheb, Pinarayi Vijayan, Uddhav Thackeray and all the (other) Opposition leaders will be in jail.”

Kejriwal then played up possible divisions within the BJP by underlining the systematic sidelining of veterans by the leadership, particularly trying to stoke the Rajput community’s fears that it is being ignored by the party.

“They ended (L.K.) Advaniji’s, Murli Manohar Joshi’s and Sumitra Mahajan’s politics. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who won the Madhya Pradesh elections — these people did not make Shivraj Singh Chouhan the chief minister, they ended his politics,” he said.

“They ended the politics of Vasundhara Raje, Khattar Saheb, Dr Raman Singh…. Whose turn will it be next?”

The crowd chanted: “Yogi!”

Kejriwal continued: “Yogi Adityanath. If the BJP returns to power, he will be removed from the post of chief minister within two months. Only one dictator will remain.”

He targeted the Prime Minister, the fulcrum of the BJP’s campaign. “They ask who our PM candidate is. I ask who their PM candidate is. Modiji is turning 75 on September 17 next year. In 2014, Modiji had made a rule that whoever turns 75 will be made to retire,” he said.

“It started with Advaniji, followed by Murli Manohar Joshiji, Sumitra Mahajan, Yashwant Sinha. Now Modiji will retire on September 17. He is not seeking votes for himself but to make Amit Shah the next PM.”

Kejriwal attended two road shows with Mann in Delhi later in the day.