The dilapidated house of Abbasuddin at Balarampur in Cooch Behar. Picture by Himangshu Ranjan Deb

Balarampur (Cooch Behar), March 3: Another poll is round the corner and the local MLA has again come up with the age-old promise: the government will take over the dilapidated house of renowned bhawaiya singer Abbasuddin Ahmed and renovate it.

The residents of the area have become used to this lip service by politicians while the house is being reduced to just the main hall. They were also not very pleased when the CPM MLA, Tamsher Ali, recently laid the foundation stone of Abbasuddin Sanskriti Mancha, barely half-a-kilometre from the house where the singer lived till Partition.

Ali, who is from the Natabari constituency, said: ?Abbasuddin?s house will definitely be taken over by the Left Front government. We have also decided to spend Rs 20 lakh to build a hall and a bhawaiya research centre at the Mancha.?

The house is located 35 km from Cooch Behar town where Abbasuddin was born on October 27, 1901. After Partition, he moved to East Pakistan by exchanging houses. The present owner of the house has kept the hall under lock and key ever since the government promised to take it over.

Thaththuru Miyan (60), who had known the singer from a very young age, is disappointed that no one?s making any effort to restore the house. ?His father, a lawyer, did not like his obsession with bhawaiya and so Abbasuddin used to practise in the main hall, which was a bit away from the house,? he said.