New Delhi, Aug. 18: The Centre bought peace with the BJP-Shiv Sena by offering to make a fresh statement on the Veer Savarkar controversy, which rocked Parliament for the second day running.

Speaker Somnath Chatterjee tried to end the dispute by assuring the House that leader of the Lok Sabha Pranab Mukherjee would make a statement on the government’s behalf.

The move followed after two statements — one by defence minister Mukherjee and the other by parliamentary affairs minister Ghulam Nabi Azad — failed to placate the Maharashtra allies.

The controversy was sparked by the allegation that petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar had ordered the removal of a plaque containing the Hindu Mahasabha founder’s quotations from a memorial outside Cellular Jail in Port Blair, where Savarkar was incarcerated during the freedom movement.

The BJP-Sena refused to buy the official explanation that the government had nothing to do with the alleged “insult” to Savarkar’s memory.

Aware of the emotive potential of the issue in Maharashtra that goes to polls in October, the allies traded charges with the treasury benches and demanded an apology from Aiyar in the House.

Mukherjee said that according to the facts he verified with Aiyar, the Swarna Jyoti (eternal flame, as the martyrs’ memorial outside the Andaman jail is called) commemorated the freedom movement and it was only appropriate that Mahatma Gandhi be remembered on the plinth on which the flame rests.

“This was done at my (Aiyar’s) instance. Neither at the official function nor in the press conference that followed did I refer to V.D. Savarkar,” Mukherjee quoted Aiyar as saying.

Azad repeated the statement in the Rajya Sabha and added that Aiyar said he had made no mention of the removal of any plaque.