Lakhs of devotees throng Lord Jyotirling fair

Kolhapur, Apr 13 (UNI) Over three lakh devotees from Maharashtra and neighbouring Karnataka today attended the annual Lord Jyotirling fair at Wadi-Ratnagiri in this district.

For the last two days the devotees were thronging the venu, situated in western Maharashtra, by different means of transport such as state transport buses, trucks, tempos and bullock-carts to attend the annual fair.

The fair started in the morning with a puja of Lord Jyotirling also popularly known as Jyotiba. It was followed by 'abhishek' and later the temple was thrown open for devotees.

In the afternoon at around 1400 hrs, a procession of the 'sasan kathis' (bamboo poles), decorated with colourful clothes, was taken out from the temple to Goddess Yamai temple, the procession was flagged off by Maharashtra Rural Development Minister Vijaysingh Mohite-Patil.

Maharashtra Co-operation Minister Patangrao Kadam, District Collector Praveen Darade, District Superintedent of Police Sukhvinder Singh and other government officials were present on this occasion.

Later at 1730 hrs, a 'palkhi' procession was taken out from temple to Goddess Yamai temple, which was witnessed by huge crouds.

Elaborate police arrengement was made for the fair. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) had made special arrengement to ferry devotees. No untoward incident was reported, police said.

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