Can't the Gandhis, like the aam aadmi, be tried in courts?

According to an estimate, each day of running Parliament costs the exchequer more than Rs 2 crores. Going by this figure, Congress' three days of disruptions have wasted more than Rs 6 crores of taxpayers' money. As the stalling of Parliament continues, the cost is likely to mount. Congress MPs in parliament are refusing to let it function claiming that the National Herald case is a result of "political vendetta". Party workers are out on the streets. Leaders, even remotely active on the social media, are posting tweets after tweets on the issue.

What exactly has jolted the party to this extent? If it is the case itself which is bothering them, shouldn't they have reacted when it was filed. Or, is the reaction about the Delhi high court's refusal to exempt the Congress president and vice president from appearing before a trial court? Or, the realisation that even the mighty Gandhis are not above the law; something they might have mistaken to believe after decades of Congress rule in the country.

In March this year, a special court summoned former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the coal scam case. Congress took out a solidarity march in his support. The outrage, the grief, the anguish that we are witnessing now was missing. In the difference between the two reactions lies the story of Congress' doom. Just last week, in the same Parliament, Sonia Gandhi reminded the ruling party of her party's legacy, of its role in the drafting of the Constitution. Within a few days, she has made clear the exemption she expects for being associated with the family which has headed the party for generations - aam aadmis can be tried in the court, not the Gandhis!

Be the National Herald case, or Vadra's land deals, Congress, as a party, could have handled the situation gracefully by fighting it out in court, and let the final verdict speak for itself. Instead, every time anything similar crops up, partymen choose to rally around the "the family".

A family trying to consolidate powers isn't surprising, but Congressmen letting it claim the party's rich legacy as its own is. Shouldn't the partymen share the blame for the Congress being passed as heirloom within a family, and allowing it to reduce them to a bunch of henchmen acting at the behest of the "High Command"?

Even today, in the face of the challenges that Congress faces to revive itself, it is difficult for the partymen to dissociate the party from the family. A case against Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi is their personal legal trouble. Party MPs' willingness to shun their duties as lawmakers to save their "High Command" from being treated like any other citizen of the country shows what their priorities are.