Jagmeet Singh is hailed as one of Toronto’s best dressed men.

He may also be the best hope for threadbare New Democrats.

Not just in Ontario, but across Canada. Leaderless federally, rudderless provincially, the NDP could regain its footing if Singh one day becomes party leader.

The only question is when — and where — he makes his move.

Singh, 37, tells me he will decide early next year whether to take a run at the vacant federal leadership. Or just jog in place until the provincial leader’s job becomes vacant, perhaps the year after.

In the six months since Tom Mulcair lost a federal leadership review, not a single candidate has formally entered the race. As disheartened New Democrats wallow in third place, it’s a wonder there isn’t more buzz about Singh’s political gifts.

The NDP’s brightest star is hiding in plain sight in the staid confines of Ontario’s legislature. With his trademark bright pink or orange turbans and three-piece suits (designed by himself), Singh checks off more boxes and touches more demographics than most retail politicians:

Progressive lawyer, fashion plate, bilingual, ruggedly handsome, young and eligible. He drives a bicycle around downtown Toronto and commutes from his Brampton riding in a BMW sports car. A poster child for ethnic outreach and youthful style, he is the jolt of energy a moribund NDP needs now.

And, ah, because it’s 2016: Great hair (beneath his turban, as revealed in a recent CBC program); and, he quips, great abs under his bespoke suits, just like another agile (but often shirtless) politician, Justin Trudeau. Indeed, post-Mulcair, Singh might settle once and for all the picayune question of whether Canadians will vote for a bearded politician.

Either way, Singh is a proven fighter, not just another pretty face. His mastery of jujitsu — a form of martial arts that uses an opponent’s weight and momentum to subdue them — gives him an advantage in political combat.

Proud of his Sikh heritage, he embodies the happy warrior motif perfected by former federal leader Jack Layton.

He campaigned hard at Queen’s Park against carding, describing how it felt as a criminal defence lawyer to be stopped by police for being “brown while driving.” But his public advice to young men of colour was vintage Singh: If you are not under arrest, you need not provide any information, but “Compose yourself and be polite and respectful with the police officer.”

In a legislature bereft of charisma, where most MPPs remain invisible, Singh is the visible minority parliamentarian who keeps on charming opponents and disarming journalists. He greets Liberal cabinet ministers with full honorifics, calls Progressive Conservative MPPs “brother,” and offers fist bumps to armed guards from the legislature’s protective service.

He is respected and admired by fellow New Democrat MPPs, despite having vaulted ahead of the entire caucus as a rookie to become deputy leader last year, when he was being wooed by the federal party to run in the 2015 election. Fellow New Democrat France Gélinas, a francophone MPP from Sudbury, praises his French.

Shortly after winning an upset victory in the Liberal stronghold of Bramalea-Gore-Malton in the 2011 election, the Star’s Queen’s Park Bureau chief Robert Benzie profiled him as one of “12 to watch in 2012.” That was followed by Toronto Life magazine putting him on its cover as one of the city’s “best-dressed for 2013” and also among five rising young stars in its “50 Most Influential” survey. Canadian Lawyer magazine dubbed him “the most interesting man at Queen’s Park.”

Singh first made his mark by recruiting a small army of young activists to volunteer on his Brampton campaigns, increasing his share of the vote even as New Democrats faced strong headwinds across the GTA. Today, when school groups tour Queen’s Park, they can be seen listening raptly as the impish politician holds forth, flitting from vanity to humility in the blink of an eye.

The son of a psychiatrist and teacher who emigrated from India, he was born in Scarborough, lived as a child in Newfoundland, and spent his formative years in Windsor as his parents changed jobs. Wearing a turban in predominantly white cities, he was mocked and bullied. Rather than retreating into his shell, Singh responded with a show of brash self-confidence — buttressed by a show of force from his self-defence training.

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That’s his life story of growing up amidst adversity as a young man. Now schooled in the art of politics, does Singh have the right (and left) stuff for New Democrats?

More on his world view, from our interview, in my next column.

Martin Regg Cohn’s political column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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