Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Tuesday urged the Opposition party leaders not to mix politics with development programmes, meant for the benefit of the people.

Speaking to reporters in Bangalore, he said that though the Opposition leaders were invited to various functions organised recently by the Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, none of them attended any of those functions. “I think they (Opposition members) have not been able to digest the good work done by the coalition government,” he stated.

Without directly referring to recent criticism made by the Congress leader Siddaramaiah, he said it was unfortunate that they had indulged in politics and accused the ruling coalition of organising functions without financial clearance. In fact, every programme was given administrative approval and only then the functions were organised, he added.

On Mr Kumaraswamy’s popular “Grama Vastavya” (village stay) programme, he said it only reflected that the local legislators, ministers in-charge of districts and officials were not discharging their duties well. He said the programme has to be made mandatory for deputy commissioners and tahsildars to stay for one day in a village, every month.