The Election Commission is likely to announce the polling schedule for 224-member Karnataka assembly today, official sources said.
The last state elections were held in the first week of May in 2008.
The polls are being seen politically crucial for the ruling Congress as well as the BJP as it is the only big state where the former is in power after losing a string of assembly elections to the saffron party in the last few years.
The BJP is making a concerted bid to unseat the Congress.
Beside, the Congress and the BJP, the JD(S) led by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda is the third player in the fray.