Like the proverbial Betaal, the National Herald case is set to hound the Congress, as a Delhi court has deferred its decision on taking cognisance of the Enforcement Directorate chargesheet in the matter till December 16, and the party has coined a new term, “National Harassment Case”, to allege political vendetta against its top leadership.

Without going into the merit of the case, the fact remains that it has been hanging over the principal opposition party like the sword of Damocles for over 13 years since the then BJP MP Dr Subramanian Swamy filed a complaint. Initially, it was not taken seriously and was passed off as yet another act of Swamy grinding his axe in the political arena, as has been his wont. Not long ago, he had joined hands with Sonia Gandhi to topple the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998. Every time it appeared he was fading out of public memory, he would come up with some serious allegations or some unverified documents to remain in the news.

The National Herald case was taken as yet another of Swamy’s political pranks to remain in the limelight. For the next two years, none heard anything about it until a Delhi court issued summons to Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and others in 2014, and all of them were........

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