India has to elect its 16th President in July 2012. Among a plethora of other stronger contenders, Gujarati techie Sam Pitroda has emerged as a dark horse in the race to become India's next President. A native of Tikar village in Halvad taluka of Surendranagar district and a physics graduate of M S University, Satyanarayan Gangaram Panchal, alias Sam Pitroda, would be the first Gujarati to adorn the country's highest post, if he makes it.

Sam Pitroda was born in Orissa and speaks Oriya fluently. An OBC, he is the son of a carpenter who had migrated to Orissa in search of work. The front-runners include vice-president Hamid Ansari, Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and statesman Dr Karan Singh. Ansari is considered to be the obvious choice for this position. Since the last couple of weeks, the name of Pitroda is being discussed in political circles. His emergence was noticed when he accompanied Rahul Gandhi for the release of the Congress manifesto in Uttar Pradesh in the recently concluded five-states assembly elections.

Pitroda returned to India from the US on an invitation by Rajiv Gandhi and it was with the former PM's full support that he brought in telecom and computer revolution to ready the country for the 21st century. At present, he is the advisor to PM on information infrastructure and innovation. During UPA-1, he was chairman of the Knowledge Commission. Interestingly, he is also an advisor to Mamata Banerjee for the 'Resurgent Bengal' campaign and has very good relationship with Sharad Pawar and Naveen Patnaik.

After the debacle in the recent assembly polls, the Congress has got weakened and allies are in a mood to bargain hard in return for support on this vital issue. The Congress leadership thus would feel safer with a candidate with maximum acceptance. While it is felt that candidates from minority, Dalit and OBC sections would serve a political purpose, there is also a desire to find someone who is above politics, a statesman and a global ambassador for the nation.