Sidhu’s wake-up call

Sidhu said he would analyse the reasons behind the decline in the margin. “But in the end it is the victory that matters, though there are several reasons that led to the decline in margin,” he said. total of 8,79,247 votes were cast for the Lok Sabha bypoll, the voting for which took place on February 13 along with the Assembly polls. Sidhu got 4,44,748 votes, while Singla bagged 3,67,122 votes.

While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visits to the Holy City and sops announced by him for the area might have also gone in favour of Singla, the organisers of Sidhu’s campaign have other reasons behind the lower margin.

“During the general parliamentary elections, all MLAs were working for him, but now they were engaged in their own electioneering,” felt Major R S Gill (retd), Sidhu’s close ally. He added that as Sidhu was campaigning for the party throughout the state, he had little time left for his own canvassing.