Your team should be grooming and prioritizing the backlog. If the tech debt exists but the business doesn’t value working on it, then yes it won’t get worked. But it also wouldn’t ever get done as some stray //TODO either.
Unless you're in a Scrum team and "The Product Owner is responsible for the Product Backlog, including its content, availability, and ordering." is taken to mean that the PO has the final say on what's prioritized. If your PO has a project manager title, as most do, and they see their career advancement is tied to shipping features on or ahead of schedule, then indeed, that ticket will be forever ignored.
Then don't make it "stray" - parse the code for todos and other lintable items - and yes some grooming is needed - but don't make the ticketing system drive the development- that's the tail wagging the dog, or looking at the receipt at the restaurant and thinking that's what caused the chef to cook the meal.