New Delhi, Feb 10 (IANS): With the Omicron threat looming large, an infrared thermometer gun's battery went down after just three hours of voting at a Loni polling station.

"We had immediately informed the health department about it and we are awaiting the battery," said an official present at the JP girls Inter College in Loni.

The thermo-guns have been in frequent use since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 to read temperatures of a person.

The infrared thermometer infers temperature from a portion of the thermal radiation sometimes called black-body radiation emitted by the object being measured. However, despite the temperature not being checked, the voting process continued without any hindrance at the said polling station in Loni.

As per the latest reports, the polling which began at 7.00 a.m. in the morning with some residents reaching their nearest polling booth as early as 6.30 a.m. has now begun picking up pace. The voter turnout of the whole Ghaziabad district till 1.00 p.m. stood at 17.26 per cent.

There are five Assembly constituencies in the Ghaziabad district - Ghaziabad, Loni, Modi Nagar, Muradnagar and Sahibabad. The voting percentage at Ghaziabad was lowest at 8.90 per cent and highest at Modinagar with 23.44 per cent.