The weekend triumph of Jagmeet Singh as the new leader of the federal NDP was unprecedented in many respects.

Gone was the old policy-driven NDP of the Ed Broadbent days.

The new NDP is all about pizazz and style, not substance, where religious orthodoxy and militancy are viewed as progressive and revolutionary.

“How did someone with no name recognition outside of Brampton defeat sitting caucus members you ask?” wrote my friend, Liberal Party backroom operative Omar Khan, in the Sun Tuesday.

He suggested Singh won, “Partly because the era of old-school brokerage politics dominated by party insiders is coming to an end.”

I disagree. I’d argue a major reason Singh won is that his NDP opponents and the media dared not ask him tough questions about Sikh nationalism and his reluctance to denounce the Air India bombers.

But sooner or later, it had to happen.

On Singh’s first day of work as NDP leader Monday, veteran CBC journalist Terry Milewski interviewed him on Power and Politics.

According to tweets by Milewski, Singh initially demanded to see the questions to be asked of him prior to the interview, or he’d cancel it. When this was refused, Singh reconsidered and agreed to be interviewed.

Here is a synopsis of a key exchange, where Singh danced around a simple question put to him four times by Milewski:

Milewski: Do you think that some Canadian Sikhs go too far when they honour Talwinder Singh Parmar as a martyr of the Sikh nation … when he was the architect of the Air India bombing? Do you think that’s appropriate?

(Parmar, while never convicted of the 1985 mid-air bombing of Air India Flight 182 in which 329 people died in Canada’s worst case of terrorism, is widely considered to have masterminded it. He was killed by Indian police in 1992.)

Singh: Well, I think it’s so important that we really clarify a misconception that exists. There has been a lot of work ... to be creating a conflict that’s between Hindus and Sikhs, and for me that’s something that really offended me ...

Milewski: Forgive me, but you could do that right now by saying, ‘no, it isn’t appropriate to put up posters of Canada’s worst ever mass murderer as a martyr.’ Do you think that’s appropriate?

Singh: Let me ... just clarify a point here. It is so important that we rid this notion that there has ever been a conflict between Hindus and Sikhs …

Milewski (interrupting): For the third time I am asking, it is not a hard question ... is it appropriate …

Singh: Let me finish my sentence …

Milewski: What about putting up posters of Parmar, the architect of the Air India bombing, as a martyr? Is that appropriate? Yes or no?

Singh: It is so unacceptable that the violence that was committed ... I regularly denounce it on the anniversary ... there is no question about this, that innocent lives were killed, and it is completely unacceptable and needs to be denounced as a terrorist act.

Milewski: So you won’t denounce those posters of Parmar?

Singh: I don’t know who was responsible. But I think we need to find out who was truly responsible, we need to make sure that the investigation actually results in a conviction of someone who was actually responsible ...

Here was the new leader of the federal NDP repeatedly refusing to directly answer a simple question.

Not an impressive debut in his first day on the job.