Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Monday claimed the BJP was trying to get him to split the Aam Aadmi Party by using the carrot of the chief minister’s post and the stick of the CBI.

In comments that came on a day he began a tour of poll-bound Gujarat, Sisodia also stressed his caste identity as a Rajput.

“I got a message from the BJP— break the AAP and come to the BJP, we will get all CBI, ED cases closed,” he tweeted on Monday morning.

“My reply to the BJP— I am a descendant of Maharana Pratap, a Rajput. I will get myself beheaded but will not bow down before corrupt conspirators. All the cases against me are false. Do whatever you want to.”

The CBI had raided Sisodia’s home and office on August 19. The agency is probing a complaint from lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena that the AAP government had given undue favours to liquor licensees, causing losses to the exchequer.

Sisodia further tweeted: “My message to the BJP on the offer to make me CM candidate — @ArvindKejriwalji is my political mentor, I will never betray him. I did not come to become CM, my dream is that every child of the country should get a good education. Only then will India become the number one country. Only Kejriwalji can do this work in the whole country.”

Manoj Tiwari, BJP leader and North East Delhi MP, responded on Twitter, saying: “Manishji said that the CBI took away his phone.... So, on whose phone did the call or message come, name the person and get the phone deposited for investigation.”

While Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Sisodia held news conferences in Ahmedabad and Himatnagar in Gujarat, repeating these charges, other AAP leaders did so in Delhi.

Kejriwal tweeted: “Operation Lotus has failed in Delhi.”

“Operation Lotus” is the Opposition’s moniker for alleged BJP moves to topple Opposition-ruled state governments by engineering defections.

The CBI has issued lookout notices for eight other accused in the liquor case, of whom two are reportedly outside India.