Chennai: Expelled DMK leader and former Union minister M K Alagiri has said he is gearing up for the rally on 5 September with just his followers (thondargal). “I have not invited any leaders for the rally,” Alagiri told reporters in Madurai this morning.

That is because,  he said, cadres are the true leaders of the party. He will be meeting the cadres in Madurai tomorrow to chalk out the plans for the Chennai rally.

“They do not (the DMK led by its working president M K Stalin) appear to want to take me back,” he told reporters yesterday, answering a question.

Asked about his next course of action, Alagiri said it would be decided after the 5 September rally in Chennai.

“All these things will be decided after the rally on September 5. Functionaries from all districts will be consulted and a decision taken,” he said.

Alagiri, who has been questioning the leadership of his estranged brother M K Stalin, had recently announced that he would hold a peace rally in Chennai, to the mausoleum of his late father M Karunanidhi.

Though the former Minister was expelled in 2014 from the party by Karunanidhi, he participated in the funeral of his father.