Meghalaya Assembly Speaker E K Mawlong said "the split in the Indian National Congress pertaining to Meghalaya which took place on May 31 both at the levels of original political party and at the legislature party, stands valid."

Mawlong justified his ruling saying that the nine-member MCLP led by Sangma commands the required number of more than one-third of the total strength of 25 Congress Legislature Party members.

``Hence, MCLP did not attract disqualification under paragraph three of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution,'' he said.

With this development, the MCLP has left a lot of scope for the United Democratic Party (UDP) to recalculate its strategy to forge new alignment with MCLP to be in the power with more command.

At present,UDP led by B B Lyngdoh in coalition with the Congress is ruling the 60-member Assembly where the former has 20 MLAs.

However, Meghalaya Congress Pradesh Committee president and Rajya Sabha MP O L Nongtdu in his reaction to the Speaker's decision said that there would be no more division in Congress and no further threat to the present coalition government.