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Thari women set example for all with nearly 73% turnout in 2018 elections
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.
Comments (13) Closed
Salute to Hindus in Thur!
Shahbash Thari women for exercising your right. This is how you will be taken seriously by lawmakers.
Off course Pakistan is changing. Every one must come out for their rights like Tharis.
Bravo Thari women....you are source of light for the rest of Pakistan.
That's an amazing news! Makes me so happy. I hope it does send the message across the people that our country's transformation is more in our hands as compared to our government.
No wonder PPP won !!!
question is if these women came out to vote themselves or were FORCED to vote and brought to polling stations just to put their stamps on the election symbol of the feudal lord . this needs to be answered.
Unfortunately PPPP candidate won from both seats and these people don't even recognize the issues of these poor people of Thar. Chief minister said everything is just fine in Tharparkar after news of new born babies dying broke in the newspaper.
Top priority should be given to this area to be developed.
As a result the two governments should pay great attention to thar problems.
The over all low turnout indicates lack of interest of people in the election process.Many educated men as well as weomen donot have choice of reliable and trustworthy candidates so they didnot cast the vote.It is also way to express thr freedom of opinion(please dont mention the example of Australia)
I had it in the back of my mind Thari women would want change more than women in any other region, and that there would be a bigger turnout than in other places.
With cash and free food provided by the party which wanted their votes, who wouldn't line up for voting?
Atleast some have guts in Pakistan. My highest respect for Thari ladies. Keep the flag flying.