Civil society leaders are behaving like legislators, says Finance Minister

Kolkata: Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday that the leaders of the civil society movement for a Lokpal Bill have given an impression as if they have become legislators.

"The way the civil society movement is continuing in the country, it gives an impression that the leaders have become legislators," Mukherjee said.

Speaking at the convocation of the Bengal Engineering and Science University in Shibpur in Howrah district, Mukherjee said he had been asked during a program in Hanoi why the government was giving so much importance to the civil society movement in the country.

"I told them that Indian democracy is not stagnant. It is a multi-faceted democracy. We have to consider opinions of different people and organisations. It is a new kind of process. We have to listen to them," Mukherjee said. ''There are thousands of opinions on any important issue, which have to be heard, he added.