Karnataka on Friday appeared hurtling towards snap polls with Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy going for a special Assembly session on October 18 for a possible trust vote while the Bharatiya Janata Party said it was equally ready to face the hustings.

As cracks emerged in the tottering BJP-Janata Dal-Secular coalition amid reports of tough bargaining, the top brass of the JD-S met in New Delhi, but Kumaraswamy's party appeared unrelenting on giving chief ministership to the BJP in line with a power-sharing pact.

All eyes are on Saturday's meeting between JD-S chief H D Deve Gowda and BJP president Rajnath Singh on the future of the 20-month coalition government.

Gowda had said on Thursday said that everything will be clear in "48 hours."

A three-hour long meeting of the Political Affairs Committee of JD-S reviewed the situation in Delhi, but there was no immediate word whether JD-S will finally honour the pact.

The strategy of Congress is awaited as it adopted a "wait and watch" policy since the next elections are due only in May 2009.

The snap poll gauntlet thrown by Kumaraswamy was accepted by BJP, which said on Friday it was also ready amid uncertainty over power transfer.

The decision to convene the special Assembly session was taken at a meeting of the state Cabinet in Bangalore.

With the saffron party coming under pressure from its ministers and legislators to pull out of the government and JD-S levelling  a barrage of allegations against its ruling partner, an embattled Yediyuurappa declared "if JD-S does not
want to transfer power and wants to go to people's court, we are also ready."