Thari women have made a record with their excellent turnout in last week's general elections, it emerged on Sunday.

Details collected from the District Returning Officer (DRO) in Mithi and the official website of Election Commission of Pakistan revealed that two constituencies of Sindh's underdeveloped Thar district, NA-221 and NA-222, emerged as those with the highest voter turnout ratios across Pakistan.

In NA-221 Tharparkar-I, the turnout ratio was 68.6 per cent with 72.83pc of the female voters and 65.39pc of male voters showing up to vote. A total of 166,527 votes were cast here of which 9,341 were rejected.

The ratio of women who came out to vote in NA-221 is the highest anywhere in Pakistan.

In NA-222 Tharparkar-II, the turnout ratio was 70.91pc with 71.40pc of the female voters and 70.51pc of male voters turning out to vote. Here, a total of 235,340 votes were cast out of which 12,763 votes were rejected on various accounts.

Also read: What is half of Pakistan thinking?

The national average of voter turnout recorded by the ECP is 51.7pc.

Despite the lack of paved roads, transportation and communication facilities in many areas of the desert region, as well as the extremely hot July weather, the people of the area still came out to vote.

The rain-dependent region of Thar has a population of 1.6 million, of whom 574,333 are registered voters. These include 254,522 women voters.

An activist from Thar, Kapil Dev, while talking to Dawn urged the people living in urban areas to learn a lesson from Tharis and exercise their right to vote in greater numbers in future.