Generally, a parliament member post is considered to be prestigious and respectable, compared to that of the assembly member, as an MP would get a national recognition and has the opportunity to lobby at the Delhi level.
In the last few years, the MPs, particularly those from Andhra Pradesh, have been reluctant to contest the Lok Sabha elections again for various reasons.
In the past when the MPs used to do extensive lobbying with the powers-that-be in the Centre to get several favours like contracts, commissions in various projects etc.
But now, the MPs have nothing much to do and there is no value for their recommendations in the central ministries and departments, as the Narendra Modi government has not been giving any scope for the MPs to do any lobbying in the power corridors.
Even in the parliamentary debates, the MPs have little scope to represent the state issues.
Except a few like V Vijay Sai Reddy or K Rammohan Naidu or Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar, hardly any leader from Andhra Pradesh takes active part in parliamentary debates.
These MPs do not even understand the debates which normally take place in Hindi; so, they sit in the House for a while and then quietly come out, unable to understand what is going on, except when there are discussions on the issues pertaining to the state.
Since there is no way for the MPs to make good money, they are not evincing interest in contesting the Lok Sabha elections again.
Several MPs of YSRC reportedly told party president and chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy that they are not keen on contesting again, but would like to fight for the assembly elections, because at least the MLAs have the clout among the people.
So, it is learnt Jagan is planning to replace them with new faces in the Lok Sabha elections, while giving party tickets for the assembly elections to some of them, or use their services for the party.
Sources said Jagan is trying to convince some of his present senior cabinet colleagues and MLAs to contest the Lok Sabha elections, so that he could field the sitting MPs as MLAs in the assembly elections.
Some of these prospective candidates for the Lok Sabha elections are: Botsa Satyanarayana, Tammineni Sitaram, Dharmana Prasada Rao, Kurasala Kanna Babu, Alla Nani, Anil Kumar Yadav, Mohammad Iqbal etc.
Though Jagan is talking to other MLAs also, they are not interested in contesting the MP elections. But if the chief minister insists, they have no option but to accept.
So, Jagan is first concentrating on selecting the MP candidates and after finalising their names, he will turn his attention to the selection of candidates for the assembly elections, sources said.
