Embattled Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is facing a palace coup as disgruntled Tories are poised to call for a leadership vote at a party meeting next month.

Ten London-area Tory party members have signed a motion to amend the PC party constitution to allow for a leadership vote to take place. Many party members have expressed dismay over the Tories’ poor byelection showing last week and feel Hudak’s low personal popularity ratings have a lot to do with that.

While Hudak was able to make a long-awaited breakthrough into the vote-rich 416 area of the province with the election of former Toronto city councillor Doug Holyday, he was unable to make the gains in London West or Ottawa South that the party had hoped for.

Instead, the NDP picked up two seats in Windsor Tecumseh and London while the Liberals hung on to two seats in Scarborough Guildwood and Ottawa.

Two independent sources, who spoke to the Toronto Sun on condition of anonymity, have confirmed they have requested the leadership review. They say as many as five caucus members support the move.

“The issue arose because at the door and on the telephone, voters expressed their dislike for Tim Hudak,” one source told me.

“It was such a percentage that it impeded the success of the candidate,” the source said.

“Despite being a very nice man, a family man, an honourable man, he is a liability.”

The people behind the push call themselves “grass roots members,” and say caucus members risk a great deal by allying themselves with the movement.

Under Tory Party rules, a leadership review is required after a general election in which the party did not become government.

Hudak faced such a review in February 2012, and got a respectable 78.7% approval rating from party faithful.

In the wake of the disappointing byelection showings, PCs are calling for the party to review that vote.

Under the Tory constitution, it would require a two-thirds vote of members to change the rules and force another review.

Many key Tories disagree with the motion and believe it would be strategically foolish to trigger a leadership vote and plunge the party into disarray at a time when there is a fragile minority government.

They don’t trust the Liberals and fear they would pull the plug on the government and ask Lt.-Gov. David Onley to dissolve Parliament and call an election while they’re leaderless or have an interim leader at their helm.

Historically, during minority governments, there’s an unspoken agreement that the government not call an election when another party was in the middle of a leadership review. Tories don’t trust Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government to honour that tradition.

Hudak’s supporters believe the byelection results were skewed because they took place in the middle of summer, when many people were on vacation and when voter turn-out was miserably low.

Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris said Sunday this is just “sour grapes,” by a small group within the party and doesn’t represent the broader concerns of the party.

Responding on behalf of the party and Hudak, Harris said he’s “pissed off” by what he called their “short-sighted,” tactics.

“Tim, as our leader, made substantial gains in the 2011 election,” he said.

Harris pointed out the Tories got more votes than both the Liberals and the NDP in last week’s byelections.

“If you replicate the results from Thursday, we would win Kitchener Centre, Kitchener Waterloo and Brantford,” he said.

Harris said he doubts any caucus members are onside and believes only a handful of party members are behind the strategy.

“We’re just going to let them do what they’ve got to do and we’ll shut them down come September,” he said.

“I spent a lot of time in London West and nobody told me ‘I’m not voting for you because of your leader.’” he said.

“It’s silly and it won’t have the support of caucus.”

“I’m at Queen’s Park because of Tim Hudak.”

Those who support the review say Hudak doesn’t have the momentum to win an election. They wonder what the difference would be between a poor election outcome as a result of not having a leader and a poor election outcome because their leader is unpopular.

The motion asks for a vote at a special general meeting, September 20-21.

A source said “hundreds” of local PCs are enthusiastic about this motion and expects widespread support for it.

Hudak has struggled since his early days as leader. Much of the credit for that goes to the so-called “Working Families Coalition” — a group financed by public sector unions that have profited hugely under the McGuinty and now the Wynne years.

The group funded a costly negative advertising campaign during the 2011 campaign that branded Hudak as being the candidate of big business and underscoring his ties to the former Mike Harris government.

This time, though, the attack on Hudak is coming not from the outside — but from within.

And sometimes those are the toughest battles to fight.