KOLKATA: Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on 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 in West Bengal's Howrah district. 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 organizations. It is a new type of process."