David Cameron more the doubled the Tories' support among ethnic minorities at the election – securing more than a million ethnic votes for the first time in the party's history.

In 2010, when the Tories failed to secure an overall majority, just 16 per cent of black and ethnic minority voters backed the Conservatives.

But in this month's election, Tory support among Britain's ethnic minority communities more than doubled to 33 per cent, according to research published today.

Scroll down for video

David Cameron - pictured visiting the Sikh's holy Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, in 2013 - more the doubled the Tories' support among ethnic minorities at the election

The surge in black and Asian support for the Tories was driven in large part by middle class Sikh and Hindu families from India.

Almost half of British Indians now support the Conservatives – while just four in 10 support Labour.

Labour, however, has retained the support of other Asian voters – principally Muslim families from Pakistan and Bangladesh. In the last election some 64 per cent of Muslims backed Ed Miliband.

Black voters also still overwhelmingly support Labour, according to the research by the think tank British Future.

Overall, Labour remains ahead with minority voters – with 52 per cent support.

But according to today's report the gap between the two main parties shrank dramatically at the election.

While Labour secured 1.6 million ethnic minority votes – the Conservatives topped the one million mark for the first time.

The Lib Dems and Greens both secured just 150,000 ethnic minority votes, with Ukip even further behind on 75,000.

The surge in black and Asian support for the Tories was driven in large part by middle class Sikh and Hindu families from India

Overall, Labour remains ahead with minority voters – with 52 per cent support - but the Tories have dramatically narrowed the gap

Ethnic minority Christians and Muslims preferred Labour to the Conservatives – but Hindus and Sikhs backed the Tories.

Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, said the research by pollsters Survation showed the ethnic minority voters were more 'up for grabs' than ever before.

He said: 'While David Cameron clearly took a lot of votes from the Lib Dems in the election, he also seems to have extended his party's appeal to ethnic minority voters too.

'Labour remains ahead with minority voters, but the party may have won too many of its minority votes in the wrong places electorally – doubling majorities in heartland urban seats that were already safe but slipping in the southern marginals.

'But in places like Watford, Swindon and Milton Keynes, Conservatives can be increasingly confident of their appeal to aspirational ethnic minority voters.

'The middle-England 'Mondeo Man' of the 2015 election could well be a British Asian.'

The surge in ethnic minority support for the Tories was described as a 'breakthrough' by the race equality think tank the Runnmyede Trust.

Its director Omar Khan said: 'These findings confirm that Labour remains the preferred choice among BME voters, but also that the Conservative party has made a breakthrough in winning around a third of those votes, nearly matching their overall national vote share.

'The research also offers new evidence on what we know about voting patterns among different ethnic groups and in different areas in modern Britain.

'Labour's vote share looks to have held up best in the top 75 most diverse seats in the UK, where half of BME people live.