NEW DELHI: CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury has written to Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi expressing concern that state election officers have sent out teams of enumerators to collect the Aadhar card details of voters.Yechury has requested Zaidi to clarify that the Aadhar Card is not mandatory for the exercise of franchise and ensure the sanctity of the data base collected by ECI from being possibly misused. “This may be done through a media release and directions to the officials of the ECI and the state election commissions,” he wrote.“Those who have provided the details, I am informed, have also received SMS messages that they no longer require to produce their electoral cards while casting their vote,” Yechury wrote. He said though EC had some time ago clarified that the Aadhar Card details are voluntary and not a compulsory requirement for being enrolled on the voters’ list, this practice “seems to suggest that the EC has decided in making the Aadhar card a mandatory requirement for the exercise of franchise”.Yechury also told Zaidi that the Supreme Court has passed a verdict that Aadhar card cannot be made compulsory for the exercise of franchise, apart from others. “Parliament is yet to enact a legislation on this score. Under these circumstances, it is indeed very strange that the electoral officers are conducting such an exercise conveying such an impression,” he said.The CPM general secretary also said the data collected by the Election Commission and linking it up with the Aadhar card of every voter is a huge data base, possibly the largest data base in any country of the world, which could be put to illegal use for discriminating against a section of bona fide citizens on grounds that are patently proscribed by the Constitution. “I am sure that the Election Commission of India would not lend itself for such a gross abuse of data base it possesses of the Indian electorate through such link-up with Aadhar Card,” he said.