Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Monday night rejected Union Railway Minister Nitish Kumar's offer to resign.

Kumar had sent in the resignation letter after high drama at the Samata Party national council meeting in the afternoon, where he had announced his intention to resign from the government. 

But at that time party president and Defence Minister George Fernandes had rejected the resignation offer.

Peeved over attacks by a section of partymen, particularly the charges of corruption leveled by rebel party MP Brahmanand Mandal, Kumar urged Fernandes to order a 'judicial' probe into the allegations.

"I will not return to the government till I come out clean. I always carry my resignation letter with me as I do not want to remain in politics by compromising self-respect," Kumar said in his hard-hitting speech.

Kumar said since he did not respond to the attacks it did not mean that he could not respond to the charges but had been refraining from doing so in the larger interest of the party.

He said the problem with Fernandes was that he did not ensure strict discipline in the organisation as a result of which a section of partymen spoke whatever they liked.

Kumar's outburst came in the wake of speech made earlier by party MP Prabhunath Singh in which he made a strong plea for revoking the expulsion of Lok Sabha member Raghunath Jha and later walked out of the meeting after threatening to resign if it was not done.

Jha along with Brahmanand Mandal, MP was expelled on Sunday by the national executive, while three Bihar legislators Bhai Virendra, Ganesh Paswan and P K Sinha, were expelled earlier following a demand made by supporters of Nitish Kumar.

Jha, a former Bihar Samata Party President, who was a Fernandes loyalist, was removed from the post a few months following a crisis in the Bihar unit as Kumar supporters demanded his ouster.

Prabhnath Singh as also another party MP Renu Kumari pleaded for revoking the expulsion of Jha saying that if someone was repentant of his actions, then the party should forgive him.

Without naming Jha, Kumar said if anyone accepted his mistake genuinely, then the party's doors should be opened for him.