Senior Liberal Alex Hawke has privately urged the Coalition’s shadow cabinet to challenge the polling Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price used to claim that Indian Australians overwhelmingly favoured Labor, and warned about the “ongoing public demonisation” of the community.

Hawke, who is a key backer of Liberal leader Sussan Ley, texted his colleagues on Wednesday morning with links to alternative data after Price last week justified her claims about Indian migrants by pointing to figures from Kos Samaras, a former Labor strategist and commentator who runs the RedBridge polling company.

“A recent Redbridge poll told us that 85 per cent of those who have Indian ancestry… 85 per cent voted for Labor,” Price said last Thursday, as she clarified her earlier suggestion that Labor was bringing

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