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by Zarir Hussain, GUWAHATI, India, Feb 26 (AFP) - Polling in three restive northeastern Indian states began peacefully Wednesday amid heavy security following threats of violence from separatists, officials said.

Security was also tight for voting in northern Himachal Pradesh, the fourth state where an assembly vote was being staged, even though the election campaign in the Himalayan region has been free of violence.

Election officials in the northeastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, and Tripura, said people started lining up early morning in large numbers to cast their votes, ignoring calls by militants to boycott the elections.

"Enthusiastic voters have been pouring in to the polling booths since early in the morning," a police official in Meghalaya's state capital Shillong said.

A total of 4.2 million voters in the three states will choose from among 820 candidates.

"The election day is a big occasion here with most people attired in traditional clothes when they came to the polling booths in the morning," a Nagaland electoral officer told AFP by telephone from state capital Kohima.

More than 150,000 federal soldiers have been deployed in the three states with aerial surveillance being carried out by army helicopters in several militant-hit areas.

"We are taking no chances whatsoever, with security forces on a maximum alert to foil any attempts by rebels to disturb the poll process," Gautam Das, police superintendent in charge of counter-insurgency operations in Tripura, said by telephone from capital Agartala.

"Polling is going on peacefully and so far we don't have any reports of incidents from across the state."

On Tuesday, tribal separatists shot dead three members of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in north Tripura. They have already killed at least 30 supporters of the party in the past month.

The run-up to the elections in Nagaland was also marked by a string of attacks by militants of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN).

A police spokesman said up to 200 ruling Congress supporters and members had been kidnapped and held hostage by NSCN militants in different hideouts in the past week.

"The NSCN (Isak-Muivah) militants were targeting Congress supporters and threatening voters against voting for Congress candidates in the elections," Nagaland Police Chief Heso Mao said.

Last month, the federal government had held talks with NSCN guerrilla leaders Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah to end more than half a century of separatist revolt in the northeast.

The Congress party has emerged as the frontrunner in the states, although the CPI-M and other regional groups are also in the fray.

India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been trying to make inroads in the predominantly Christian region, but is seen as pandering to the Hindu majority in other parts of the country.

The BJP's call for banning cow slaughter during electioneering in Himachal Pradesh has backfired in the northeast as most people eat beef in the region.

Election campaigning in the state of Meghalaya has been livened up with a number of candidates adopting names such as Adolf Lu Hitler, Frankenstein and Chamberlain.

In Himachal Pradesh, a BJP bastion, around four million voters will elect 65 legislators from 391 candidates.

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