Goa Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar said on Saturday he would “chase away” tourists who do not care about “Goan culture and Goanness”. Ajgaonkar’s remark comes just a day after another state minister, Vijai Sardesai, called a section of domestic tourists visiting Goa the “scum of the earth”.

“The tourists who come here should take care of Goa’s culture and Goanness, otherwise I will chase them away,” Ajgaonkar said at the tourism department’s Food and Cultural Festival. “I will not listen to anyone. I am saying this clearly.”

He belongs to the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the state.

“We have to preserve our Goan culture and Goanness,” he said. “We do not want tourists who sell drugs. We do not want hotels which sell drugs.”

Goa, with a population of nearly 1.6 million, attracts more than six million tourists annually. On Friday, Sardesai, the state’s town and country planning minister, had said that north Indian tourists were trying to “create a Haryana in Goa”. He said while Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was trying to push tourists to come to Goa, it was difficult for the state to control “irresponsible tourists”.

On the same day, Parrikar also stirred controversy by saying that he is worried because now “even girls have started drinking beer”.