New Delhi, Sept. 18: The BJP has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to restore a plaque inscribed with the words of Hindu Mahasabha founder Veer Savarkar at the memorial in honour of freedom fighters outside Port Blair?s Cellular Jail.

But realising the appeal was futile as Singh would leave the country on an eight-day trip tomorrow, the party has announced it would go ahead with its proposed ?satyagraha? in the Andaman capital on September 21.

Over 100 party MPs will take part in the satyagraha, to be led by Sushma Swaraj, the deputy leader of the National Democratic Alliance in the Rajya Sabha.

Sushma today said the protest will be ?peaceful and lawful? despite the alleged comment of the Union territory?s Congress MP that he would not allow the protesters to get out of the airport which, ironically, was named after Savarkar by the Vajpayee government.

Sushma?s appeal to the Prime Minister was based on his response to the controversy during a news conference he addressed two weeks ago where he described Savarkar as a patriot and said the matter should be ended.

?I request him if he wants to end the dispute, he need not take anyone?s resignation (read petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar?s) or order a probe,? she said. ?He simply has to put the plaque back.?

Aiyar had ordered removal of the plaque.

Sushma left out that part in which Singh said Savarkar was a co-accused in Mahatma Gandhi?s assassination but was subsequently acquitted.

The BJP leader asked Singh not to succumb to the ?Left?s pressure? or share a ?certain mindset by which the credit for Independence should go to a particular family?.

?Roads, bhavans, universities, airports and colleges are named after members of this family. You have a Motilal Nehru Road, a Jawaharlal Nehru University, an Indira Gandhi International Airport, Rajiv Gandhi Sports Award and a Kamla Nehru College. Does the country belong to this family alone? Is there not even a small place for the other revolutionaries and freedom fighters? Our fight is for this,? Sushma said.

She even produced a replica of the plaque in brass with Savarkar and Bahadur Shah Zafar?s sayings inscribed on it.

Asked if there would be place on the four pillars for the plaque, because the contentious one has already been replaced with another containing Gandhi?s quotes, Sushma said: ?The plaque will return to its rightful place. It will not come back from Port Blair.?

Although former deputy Prime Minister .K. Advani will flag off the departure of the first group of satyagrahis from Delhi tomorrow, neither he nor Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be in the Andamans. Nor will other BJP ?stars? like Murli Manohar Joshi or Pramod Mahajan.

If the tiranga (Tricolour) yatra was planned as an Uma Bharti solo to protest her recent arrest in Karnataka for a controversial flag hoisting, the Port Blair satyagraha has been fine-tuned into a Sushma show in a double whammy of the BJP?s ?female power?.

Sushma, however, denied any such motive. Her take was since Advani had flagged off the first satyagraha in Bangalore, the party thought another parliamentary leader should be given the baton for the second one. And because the BJP?s leader in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh was ill, the mantle fell on her.