Unhappily for the CBI, key witness Shai-lendra Mahto is apparently going way overboard. In a letter to the President Shankar Dayal Sharma from Tihar jail, Mahto has said that not only they (the four JMM MPs), but a total of seven MPs were paid huge sums of money. Naming Ram Lakhan Singh Yadav and Ajit Singh as being "prime beneficiaries", he said that MPs from Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Muslim League and others had either abstained from voting or had kept away from the proceedings very deliberately. Mahtos contention: even Deve Gowda, then a low-profile back-bencher for the Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP) had not voted, as per the plan.