Rohit ‘Ro’ Khanna

Attorney, Rohit “Ro” Khanna is planning to run for Congress, and has challenged 12-term Co-ngressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) in the Democratic primary election on March 2.

Khanna is a litigation associate at the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco. He is running from the 12th Congressional district in California that includes San Mateo, Daly City, Foster City, Belmont, Burlingame, South San Francisco, Pacifica and parts of Redwood City and southwest San Francisco.

His mission, on his website votero.com, says that he is running for Congress because he has “a new vision for our district and our country. I have ideas for revitalizing the Silicon Valley economy, for providing universal access to education, for making home ownership affordable for working families, and for having a more inclusive American foreign policy. We need to think beyond traditional ideologies and labels.”

The son of an engineer who is an alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Khanna, who was born in Philadelphia and graduated in economics from the University of Chicago and from the Yale Law School, says in his Web site that he is proud of his heritage and roots, and has been profoundly shaped by his family.

Khanna has worked with the Civil Rights Alliance against the Patriot Act, defended affirmative action, represented minority students in expulsion hearings and fought for low-income tenants as an attorney, according to the Web site.

(Compiled from news dispatches and Khanna’s Web site by Charles Isaac)