Panaji, Jan 10 (IANS): Democracy is all about debate, allowing free expression of opinion and incorporating popular sentiment in government decision-making, or else it amounts to a dictatorial rule, Goa's Urban Development Minister Francis D'Souza said on Tuesday.

"In a democracy, there is the issue of debate and expression of opinion. This needs to be accepted. This is part of democracy. Otherwise, we will have dictatorship. If we do not listen to people, it will be a dictatorial rule," he said at the Legislator's Day function at the State Secretariat here.

"We have seen dictatorial rule during the Portuguese rule. India give us democracy. There is a difference between democracy and dictatorship. We have to accept that. We have to work a lot to preserve democracy. Each individual should work to preserve Indian democracy," D'Souza added.

D'Souza, who served as Deputy Chief Minister in the previous Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government in Goa, said the governments and lawmakers must be open to advice from the general public.

"Many of us are educated, knowledgeable and intelligent. But still, there is a need to take everybody's opinion, because a good suggestion can come from anyone. Not just from someone who has knowledge. It can also come from someone who is uneducated," D'Souza said.

"We should be open to opinion from all stakeholders. If we make laws like this, they will not be challenged because of public acceptability. And when laws have public acceptability, such laws cannot be changed," he said.

The Minister said lawmakers often make laws in haste, which did not bode well for either the people or such laws.

"We have to come up with good laws acceptable to everyone. Some of the problems which come up while making such laws is that we do it in a hurried way on many occasions. We table the law and pass it in the evening (on the same day). We miss out on people's opinions... and then we go about rectifying it," he said, naming some legislations that were later retracted.