‘Won’t live in India if Modi becomes PM’

The country needs to build a citizenry who are not afraid and a governance where people do not follow a leader slavishly,he added.

Ananthamurthy said there was dignity attached to PM’s post when Pandit (Jawaharlal) Nehru and (P V) Narasimha Rao assumed the charge,but this will wane away if Modi becomes the PM.

Furious at Ananthamurthy’s remarks,BJP and Modi’s supporters accused the writer of swaying according to political climate after having supported the Congress and JD(S) in the past and “currying” favours with the Congress government of the day. BJP MP Ananthkumar Hegde and local party leaders said the author was free to leave the country.

On BJP’s attacks on him,Ananthamurthy said he had been critical of Indira Gandhi and Nehru in the past but was never abused as much as the saffron party did. “If I say something and I am abused so much by a gang of people,imagine when they are in power what will happen,” he said.

Ananthamurthy said the BJP has always criticised him because he did not buy the RSS’s Hindu philosophy. “They are a fascist party and don’t understand Hinduism,” he said.