I'm trying to remove the square boxes(vertical and horizontal lines) using Hough transform in opencv (Python). The problem is none of the vertical lines are being detected. I've tried looking through contours and hierarchy but there are too many contours in this image and I'm confused how to use them.
After looking through related posts, I've played with the threshold and rho parameters but that didn't help. I've attached the code for more details. Why does Hough transform not find the vertical lines in the image?. Any suggestions in solving this task are welcome. Thanks.
Input Image :
Hough transformed Image: 
Drawing contours:
import cv2
import numpy as np
import pdb
img = cv2.imread('/home/user/Downloads/cropped/robust_blaze_cpp-300-0000046A-02-HW.jpg')
gray = cv2.cvtColor(img,cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
ret, thresh = cv2.threshold(gray, 140, 255, 0)
im2, contours, hierarchy = cv2.findContours(thresh, cv2.RETR_TREE, cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_SIMPLE)
cv2.drawContours(img, contours, -1, (0,0,255), 2)
edges = cv2.Canny(gray,50,150,apertureSize = 3)
minLineLength = 5
maxLineGap = 100
lines = cv2.HoughLinesP(edges,rho=1,theta=np.pi/180,threshold=100,minLineLength=minLineLength,maxLineGap=maxLineGap)
for x1,y1,x2,y2 in lines[0]:
cv2.line(img,(x1,y1),(x2,y2),(0,255,0),2)
cv2.imwrite('probHough.jpg',img)