It takes a democracy to make a poor tribal girl from Odisha the President of India — and that is exactly the argument Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan opened with on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, as he anchored BJP's 'Loktantra Bachao - Arajakta Hatao' ('Save Democracy - Remove Anarchy') padyatra at Sambalpur, western Odisha, taking direct aim at the Congress party.

Murmu and Modi as proof of democratic meritocracy

Pradhan's opening salvo was pointed: because India has a democracy and an Election Commission, a poor Odia tribal woman — President Droupadi Murmu — could rise to the highest constitutional office, and a child from a humble family, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, could lead the nation for a third consecutive term. The implied contrast with what he called the 'feudal Nehru-Gandhi family' was unmistakable. 'The feudalistic Nehru-Gandhi family cannot bear this,' he wrote, 'and so they speak of anarchy in the country.'

Murmu, who assumed the Presidency in 2022, was the first tribal woman to hold the office. Modi's NDA government returned to power for a third straight term after the 2024 general elections, a mandate Pradhan invoked as proof of unbroken public trust. These two facts formed the moral spine of his argument.

The voter-roll charge and the Congress question

Pradhan sharpened his critique into a direct rhetorical challenge: 'Does Congress want to win elections on the strength of dead persons, those who have changed addresses, and illegal infiltrators?' The allegation — that fraudulent entries in electoral rolls serve Opposition electoral interests — has been a recurring strand in BJP political discourse, particularly in states with notable migration patterns. Pradhan did not cite specific figures, but the charge was explicit and unambiguous.

He added that no conspiracy to protect non-citizens over India's 140 crore citizens would ever be tolerated — framing the voter-roll issue not merely as an administrative matter but as a question of national loyalty and democratic integrity.

Sambalpur padyatra and the call for a stronger Odisha

The padyatra in Sambalpur served as the physical expression of these arguments. Pradhan called on all supporters to come together through the march to 'uproot every form of anarchy from the state and build a strong Odisha.' The 'Loktantra Bachao - Arajakta Hatao' campaign frames the Opposition's criticism of democratic institutions not as legitimate dissent but as destabilisation — a framing the BJP has deployed consistently since the 2014 electoral cycle.

The Congress has yet to formally respond to the Sambalpur padyatra. Whether the party addresses the voter-roll allegations specifically — or counters with its own narrative on democratic backsliding — will determine whether this march becomes a sustained political flashpoint in Odisha.

When a party's most potent campaign visual is two of democracy's most unlikely success stories, the battle for Odisha's political imagination has well and truly begun.