Small blaze briefly stops counting, but quickly brought under control
A fire broke out at a government data center in Kolkata, India, while local election counting was happening in the building.
As reported by Telegraph India and other local press, a fire broke out at the data center in the same building as the chief electoral officer’s office on Monday morning (June 23), during counting for the by-election to the Kaliganj Assembly.
Employees at the data center on the first floor of the Balmer Lawrie building were ordered to vacate the premises. The cause of the fire has not been officially revealed, but local reports suggest an electrical fault was to blame. There were no reported injuries, and the blaze was brought under control within an hour.
Though there was apparently some damage within the data center, the election counting operations on the floors above were not impacted. Vote counting resumed shortly after.
Balmer Lawrie is an Indian government-owned conglomerate under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
The Kaliganj Assembly is part of the Nadia district constituency in the Indian state of West Bengal. Despite the fire, Trinamool Congress candidate Alifa Ahmed won the by-election by more than 50,000 votes.
