This was not the first time Sidhu remained absent from his constituency.
When he first won the election from Amritsar in 2004, Sidhu trounced seven-time Congress MP Raghunandan Lal Bhatia by a convincing margin of over 110,000 votes.
Forced to resign after he was convicted in 2006 in a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder by the Punjab and Haryana High Court and subsequently his conviction being stayed by the Supreme Court, Sidhu bounced back to win the 2007 by-election from Amritsar by nearly 80,000 votes.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Sidhu lost considerable influence and managed to win the seat by a small margin of nearly 7,500 votes.
Since then, he has concentrated more on his TV appearances, rather than spending time in Amritsar.