New Delhi, Sept. 20: Smaller parties in the Congress-NCP combine are sore at getting very few seats for the October 13 Maharashtra elections on a day that the Congress put out its first list of candidates.

The Congress has been allotted 154 seats ? the fewest Assembly seats it has ever contested in the state ? out of 288 seats in the House, with the Nationalist Congress Party being allotted 125.

The CPM has been given three seats, the CPI one, the R.S. Gavai faction of the Republican Party of India two, the Rashtriya Janata Dal one, with sitting Independent MLAs being allotted two seats.

Three seats have been given to the RPI faction led by Ramdas Athawale, who, unhappy at the allocation, has threatened to field candidates in many more constituencies. He said in Mumbai today that the Democratic Front alliance is over for him.

The Congress finally announced the seat-sharing deal late tonight after having put off an announcement for three days. The delay was caused mainly due to pressure from smaller partners for more seats. Till late in the evening, the Congress was negotiating with dissatisfied CPM and CPI leaders.

The NCP also has its task cut out in trying to placate Athawale.

The CPM, which had said it wanted to field candidates in 18 constituencies, was unhappy with its seat-share. The party, which has two sitting MLAs, managed to get just one additional seat. Dissatisfied politburo member Prakash Karat said the party would put up candidates in seven other seats.

It was not clear immediately if the Congress was keeping open the option of giving the CPM some more seats. The party put out a list of 147 and not 154 candidates today.

Parties to have drawn a blank are Ram Vilas Paswan?s Lok Janshakti Party, the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Peasants and Workers Party. Smaller partners had been enthused by talk late last week that the NCP was planning a grand secular alliance in Maharashtra to take on the BJP-Shiv Sena combine. Wednesday is the deadline for filing nominations.

Among the candidates to make it to the Congress list are chief minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, former chief ministers Vilasrao Deshmukh and Shivajirao Patil-Nilangekar and former state Congress chief Ranjit Deshmukh. All Congress ministers have been renominated and only six out of 74 sitting MLAs failed to get a party ticket.

Shinde will be seeking re-election from Solapur (South) from where he won a byelection about two years ago. Deshmukh will contest from Latur and Patil-Nilangekar from Nilanga.