NEW DELHI, February 27: It was not charity that drove both Zee TV and Star TV into starting 24-hour news channels within a month of each other. The survival of both depends on the new political equations after the elections.So, whether it is 24 Hours which religiously and unquestioningly tracks a day in the life of a politician on the Star News Channel, or the Shotgun Show on Zee India TV hosted by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) card-holder Shatrughan Sinha, equal opportunity plugs, it seems, are the order of the day.So is survival. For Star TV, a revocation of the Direct-To-Home ban is the first thing they want a new government to undertake. For Zee TV, a dilution of the 49 per cent foreign equity suggested in the Broadcasting Bill would be welcome.Both networks disagree vehemently that they are being used for political ends but in this game of cat-and-mouse, politicians can be both willing accomplices and offended antagonists.When Inder Kumar Gujral appeared on Vir Sanghvi's A Question of Answers,Star TV CEO Rathikant Basu and other senior executives lined up to greet the Prime Minister, with bouquets, outside the studio. When Gujral invited Star TV to his 7, Race Course Road, to inaugurate their 24-hour news channel, he couldn't have been more effusive about the impact of satellite television. Not surprisingly, he has appeared on practically every Star TV show that features politicians.As for the BJP, it feels Atal Behari Vajpayee consistently gets second billing to Sonia Gandhi when the two stage rallies, in fact, Star News happily ran the rumour of Sonia contesting from Amethi as its lead in its 9 p m bulletin. When Vajpayee wanted to deny the Website story, his staff phoned all TV offices but Star TV did not respond. The BJP's prime ministerial candidate got back by not participating in the Star News Channel launch. BJP Vice-President Jaswant Singh was sent instead.BJP leaders also complain that for its English language shows, the Star TV staff often call on representatives who are notfluent. They recall how one of Star TV's anchors called on Vijay Kumar Malhotra for an English language show. When the party suggested articulate acting spokesman Arun Jaitley instead, they refused.But clearly the Star News Channel is aware of its image as leaning towards Sonia Gandhi. Which is why it has risked the displeasure of Prannoy Roy's New Delhi Television which has a contract to exclusively produce programmes for their news channel to call upon Rajat Sharma, the anchor of Janta ki Adalat, and considered close to Vajpayee, to host a daily political show, 30 Minutes With Rajat Sharma.The BJP's unhappiness with NDTV extends to their show for BBC, Question Time, India, where, in a discussion on the economy, aging BJP ideologue Jay Dubashi was pitted against Congress' TV-savvy Jairam Ramesh. Though the official line on the timing of the news channel's launch is that there's no better start-up than a big event like the elections, it is also true that the network needs considerable help frompoliticians.If the networks are careful about projecting the politician's image, so is the politician. With regular BJP spokeswoman Sushma Swaraj busy campaigning, it was left to Venkaiah Naidu to be everywhere on TV. Clearly, the BJP was not too happy with his appearance, which is why the party summoned Jaitley. When it came to television, Najma Heptullah, Jairam Ramesh and Ghulam Nabi Azad presented a high profile.Often, quality is compromised in the race for political mileage. For instance, the Nalini Singh-Pritish Nandy consortium had to do their debates live because L K Advani made it a precondition to his appearance. Clearly, it was a disastrous decision.