Toronto, Apr 29 (PTI) Jagmeet Singh has announced he will step down as the leader of the NDP, the party that propped former prime minister Justin Trudeau in power, after he failed to retain even his own seat in the Canadian federal election.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal Party won the election, but it was not clear whether it would achieve a majority in Parliament. Carney became prime minister after Trudeau stepped down, in part because Singh's New Democratic Party withdrew support.

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Singh is known as a Khalistan sympathiser and had pushed for action when Trudeau triggered a diplomatic row with India, alleging Indian involvement in the murder on Canadian soil of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

On Tuesday morning, the NDP was on track to win just seven seats in 343-seat Parliament, compared to the 25 it bagged in 2021, Canadian media reported. The party needed 12 seats to maintain official party status.

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The party got a little more than five per cent of the popular vote nationally, a sharp decline from the 17.8-percent share of the national vote it received in 2021, reports said.

Singh, 46, said he will resign as soon as an interim leader can be named after he got the third place in polling for his Burnaby Central seat.

Singh choked up several times as he thanked his family, his caucus and his staff, The Globe and Mail said.

“Almost eight years ago I was elected the leader of this incredible party, this incredible movement. I worked really hard to be worthy of this trust, to live up to the legacy of our movement,” he said. “I'll be stepping down as leader.”

“Obviously I'm disappointed that we could not win more seats, but I'm not disappointed in our movement. I'm hopeful for our party,” Singh told supporters.

Earlier, NDP national director Anne McGrath said she was still hopeful the party would outperform polling predictions, according to the paper.

McGrath said the NDP losses will trigger an internal review, but she maintained that Singh ran an inspiring campaign. “The dynamic of this campaign set up a very polarised electorate around two parties, and that was a real challenge for us.”

In a campaign that focused on threats to Canada from US. President Donald Trump and concerns about the cost of living, The Globe and Mail said, Singh seemed relegated to a minor role in a debate between Carney and his conservative rival Carney's rival, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre.

The NDP signed a ‘supply and confidence' agreement in 2022 to prop up the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. But Singh tore that agreement up in September, saying “the Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people”.

However, the New Democrats did not use their votes to help the Conservatives to bring down the Trudeau government.

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