Sensuous actress Raima Sen stars as the female lead in Rituparno Ghosh forthcoming Bengali film and she replaces Bipasha Basu, who was earlier approached for the role.

For this film she backed out from the National Award winning filmmaker Goutam Ghosh’s Hindi film Yatra, starring Nana Patekar and Rekha.

The actress confirms, “I am doing Ritu da’s next film with Prosertjit. It’s a Bengali film. Incidentally, the buzz around was that Rituparno had signed up Bipasha for it, but she had asked him to revise the script.”

According to sources however, it was the remuneration demanded that had created differences between the director and the Bong beauty. Another theory doing the rounds is that Bipasha backed out of Rituparno’s Bengali project because the director did not sign up John Abraham as Bhootnath in Sahib Biwi Aur Gulam.

Earlier Bipasha Basu was approached by art-house director Buddhadeb Dasgupta for a Bengali film Kaalpurush. She was replaced by Sameera Reddy at the eleventh hour. Though Dasgupta had refused to comment on Bipasha’s exit, sources had claimed then that she had quoted an unheard of price for a Bengali movie.

But with Rituparno Ghosh’s film, the story seems different. The director had first approached Bipasha for Chokher Bali. They were then supposed to work in Ghosh’s forthcoming Bengali film. Now with Raima’s entry and Bipasha boyfriend John Abraham’s exit from Ghoush’s Sahib Biwi Aur Gulam, Ghosh and Bipasha have missed out on working with each other yet again.