life U. R. Ananthamurthy met his wife Esther in 1954 and they were married in 1956. They had two children, Sharath and Anuradha. He resided in Bangalore for most of his later life. His son in law Vivek Shanbhag also is a famous writer in Kannada. Political career U. R. Ananthamurthy made an unsuccessful run for the Lok Sabha in 2004 in which he stated that his prime ideological objective in opting to contest the elections was to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). A Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former Prime Minister of India H. D. Deve Gowda had made an offer for Murthy to contest for his party. However, after the Janata Dal (Secular) worked a power sharing agreement with the BJP, Murthy said: Ananthamurthy also contested for the Rajya Sabha elections from state assembly in 2006. The idea proposed by Ananthamurthy to rename ten cities in Karnataka including Bengaluru from their colonial forms to actual native forms was accepted by the Government of Karnataka and the cities were renamed on the occasion of the golden jubilee celebrations of the formation of Karnataka. Controversies In June 2007, Ananthamurthy declared that he would not take part in literary functions in future in the wake of strong criticism for his reaction on S.L. Bhyrappa's controversial novel Aavarana that appeared in a section of the media. In 2013, Murthy's statement that there is a reference in the Mahabharata to Brahmin's consuming beef drew flak from Hindu religious leaders. Vishwesha Teertha Swami of Pejawar Math commented that there was no reference to Brahmins consuming beef in the conversation between Bhishma and Yudhishtira or anywhere else in the Mahabharata and Murthy's statement came as a surprise to him. A vocal critic of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)/Jan Sangh for over 50 years, Murthy said in 2013 that he would not live in the country ruled by BJP leader Narendra Modi. He later clarified that those remarks were made when he was "overcome by emotion" and said that he had no such plan, though he continued to oppose BJP. Murthy was given special police protection after he began receiving threatening phone calls. Later when Modi became the Prime Minister he was given a free ticket to Pakistan by a group of Modi supporters called "NaMo Brigade". After Murthy's death was announced on 22 August 2014, several BJP and Hindu Jagarana