Mehsana: Lakhs of devotees are visiting the temple town Ayodhya following the consecration ceremony of Lord Ram at Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mandir. Indian Railways also announced the Aastha Special Train for Ayodhya from various cities across the nation. The first Aastha Special train bound for Ayodhya from Gujarat was flagged off in Mehsana on Monday.

Gujarat Minister of State for Forest and Environment Mukesh Patel, along with other senior BJP leaders, including MLAs K K Patel and Sukhaji Thakor, flagged off this Aastha Special train which departed at 11:50 pm on Monday.

Around 1,344 devotees from seven assembly seats in the Mehsana Lok Sabha have embarked on the journey to Ayodhya on this special Aastha train.

Indian Railways will be running 26 such special trains from every Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat.

In January, the railways announced that it had decided to run Aastha special trains with a round-trip ticketing facility from different parts of the country to destinations of socio-cultural importance, and the trains to Ayodhya are part of that initiative. DeshGujarat