Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Thursday, October 22, 2026, announced a statewide BJP campaign titled 'Loktantra Bachao, Arajkata Hatao' ('Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy') — a street-level offensive designed to take the ruling party's counter-narrative directly to voters across Uttarakhand, one padayatra at a time.

In his post, Dhami declared that through this campaign, the BJP will 'go among the people across the state and expose Congress's lies and fake narrative with facts.' The vehicle: foot marches and public dialogue programmes — the oldest, most tactile form of political outreach in Indian democracy.

Padayatras, Jan Samvads, and the Ground Game

The campaign's two-pronged structure — padayatras (foot marches) paired with jan samvad (public dialogue) events — is a deliberate choice. Dhami's post frames these not merely as political rallies but as exercises in 'awakening the public' and reinforcing 'democratic values, the dignity of constitutional institutions, and public trust in good governance in the state.'

The BJP in Uttarakhand has leaned on the 'su-shasan' (good governance) plank since it first came to power in the state in 2017. Foot marches and voter-connect exercises have been a consistent feature of that governance narrative — a way of keeping party workers visible and the ruling party's message street-level rather than studio-bound.

The Congress Target and What the BJP Wants to Counter

The Indian National Congress is named directly as the source of the 'lies and fake narrative' the campaign intends to dismantle. By structuring the campaign around fact-based rebuttals rather than broad ideological sloganeering, the BJP signals it sees specific opposition messaging as potent enough to require a sustained, statewide answer.

Ruling parties across Indian states have used similar ground-level campaigns — particularly when an electoral cycle is approaching or opposition momentum appears to be building. The framing around 'constitutional institutions' and 'democratic values' also attempts to claim the procedural high ground, positioning the BJP as the defender of institutional credibility rather than simply a party in a political fight.

Uttarakhand's Political Stakes

For Dhami, who leads a state that went to assembly polls in 2022 and will face voters again in 2027, keeping the party's connect with Uttarakhand's dispersed hill constituencies robust is a structural imperative. Padayatras are especially suited to the state's geography — areas where mass rallies are logistically harder to stage than in plains states.

The campaign name itself — 'Save Democracy, Remove Anarchy' — is combative enough to generate political heat but broad enough to be applied across a range of local grievances. Whether the foot soldiers show up in numbers, and whether the jan samvad sessions produce the counter-narrative traction the CM envisions, will determine if this is a genuine ground offensive or a well-branded moment.

The BJP has laid out the playbook. The padayatras begin now.