New Delhi, Sep 22 - The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) late Tuesday formally announced they will contest the Oct 13 Maharashtra assembly polls together.

The Congress and the NCP will contest 174 and 114 seats respectively, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, state Congress president Manikrao Thakre and NCP leader Praful Patel told mediapersons at the Congress headquarters here.

The two parties will start announcing lists of their candidates from Thursday.

The Congress and NCP, which make the Democratic Front, have been ruling the state for the past 10 years. While they had last week arrived at an understanding to continue their alliance, the formal announcement came late.

In the 2004 assembly polls, the Congress contested 157 of the 288 seats and the NCP fought for 127 seats, leaving the rest to allies. The Congress won 69 seats while the NCP got 71.

In the April-May Lok Sabha elections, the Congress contested 25 of the 48 seats in the state and won 17, while the NCP won only eight of the 21 seats it contested.