Will Trudeau’s party ask him to resign?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may face the toughest challenge to his leadership so far on Wednesday.

The Liberal Party MPs are scheduled to hold a meeting on Wednesday and Trudeau may end up facing a revolt in the meeting.

For days, even as Trudeau has been busy waging a campaign against India by targeting its diplomats and issuing a statement after another, his own party’s disgruntled MPs have been circulating petitions against him, with several of them reported to be seeking his ouster. These MPs believe that Trudeau will sink the party’s fortunes in the next year’s elections and the party should throw him off the ship to sail through the troubled waters.

Notably, Trudeau has been running a minority government in Canada as his coalition partner, the Khalistan-supporter Jagmeet Singh of New Democratic Party (NDP), withdrew support last month. Even though the Opposition has not yet been able to unseat him, it remains to be seen whether the brewing internal dissent would be enough to show him the door.

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Of the 152 Liberal MPs, more than 20 have formally signed a letter in protest against his leadership, according to Toronto Star.

The newspaper reported these MPs as believing that the situation in the party fluid and nothing is off the table, including Trudeau’s ouster as party leader.

A petition is circulating in the Liberal Party that seeks a secret ballot to decide the question of Trudeau’s leadership of the party, according to the newspaper.

A shuffle is not scheduled for this week or next, according to one senior source. According to other sources, the prime minister and his team have discussed new roles in government with some MPs — carrots that could quell dissent.

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The petition is addressed to Liberal Party President Sachit Mehra and claims the party faces an “existential crisis” because of “growing hostility to our leader” and “the failure of our current policy platform” to attract support, according to the newspaper.

Even though just 20 MPs are reported to have signed the petition so far, the discontent appears to be much larger.

A “handful” of Liberal MPs who have not signed the letter told the newspaper on the condition of anonymity that they would like to see Trudeau thrown out of the party leadership as the party cannot win with him at the helm.

Trudeau, whose popularity has consistently fallen for a year so, may resort to desperate measures to hold onto the party leadership.

The Toronto Sun has reported that Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office has barred all ministers from making any announcements on Wednesday. This has given rise to speculation that Trudeau may make some populist announcements to effectively buy support from MPs to stay afloat as party leader.

There is also speculation that Trudeau may shuffle his Cabinet to dole out ministerial berths to some of the dissenting MPs to buy their support.

The Sun has reported that there has also been speculation around the ongoing parliamentary session being prorogued. That could help him stay afloat for the time being as a trust vote would be needed to unseat him as premier.

As desperate Trudeau struggles to stay afloat, it remains to be seen whether his pandering or scheming convinces the party or the dissent is too much to be contained.