Kolkata, Aug 21 (IANS) Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said Sunday that the civil society movement leaders in the Lokpal Bill agitation were giving the impression that they had become lawmakers but added the government was open to hearing multiple opinions on important issues.


"The manner in which the civil society movement is going on, it gives the impression that its leaders have become legislators," Mukherjee said at the convocation of the Bengal Engineering and Science University at Shibpur in West Bengal's Howrah district.

"But there are thousands of opinions on any vital issue which need to be heard," he said.

Recalling an incident during his visit to Vietnam capital Hanoi in May for the Asian Development Bank’s 44th annual meet, the minister said: “In one of the programmes I was asked whey we were giving so much importance to the civil society movement.”

Mukherjee said he told the gathering that the Indian democracy had many hues. “We have to take into account views of a large number of people and organisations. It is a new type of process.”

The minister refused to comment on the government’s stand on the Lokpal Bill.

“The prime minister and home minister (P. Chidambaram) have made it clear. I have nothing more to add,” he told reporters.