Himachal Pradesh: Election officials mistaken dust for smoke in poll strong room
Panic was witnessed in the strong room in Himachal Pradesh's Reckong Peo Monday morning after what appeared to be smoke, was detected in the CCTV camera. The election officials, accompanied by representatives of various political parties opened the strong room after they saw smoke-like particles in the footage.
Commenting on the incident, a district official said the firefighters reached the spot in no time, as it was feared that a fire had broken out.
However, later it was found that the cameras were set to the night vision mode and dust particles spreading in a corner of the strong room gave the impression that it was smoke, he said.
Subsequently, the setting of the CCTV cameras was changed and the strong room was sealed again, the official said.
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Reckong Peo, also known as Peo, is the district headquarters of Kinnaur.
The strong room in this region is located in Bachat Bhawan and 252 electronic voting machines (EVMs) from 126 polling stations of Kinnaur assembly segment, falling under the Mandi Lok Sabha constituency, have been kept.
Mandi saw 17 candidates - the highest in all constituencies, try their luck in the Lok Sabha polls.
