The chief minister of the Indian state of Goa is pleading ignorance of a private company’s offer to provide a permanent home to the state’s shipboard casinos.

Goa’s five floating casinos have until March 31, 2017 to find somewhere other than the Mandovi river to call home. Last week, a representative of the Chowgule Group claimed to have alerted Goa’s government to a parcel of land on the Zuari river near the town of Chicalim where the state’s casinos could permanently berth.

On Sunday, Goa’s Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar (pictured) told reporters that he was “not aware of any such proposal which is related to the relocation of offshore casinos to the Chicalim Bay and there is no such issue that has come up before the government.” Parsekar claimed the whole question had been invented by the media.

It’s entirely possible that Parsekar’s apparent case of memory loss may have something to do with the unanimous opposition local villagers’ representatives have expressed to the Chowgule Group’s plan. Their representative in the state’s legislative assembly – a minister in Parsekar’s cabinet – has also expressed her opposition.