Calcutta, March 21: The disarray in the BJP camp has come out into the open as the party has had to drop Rupa Ganguly's name from the list of nominees for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) polls after her candidature was rejected on technical grounds.

The BJP had fielded Rupa, who joined the party in January, from ward 96 although she is not a resident of the area.

'Section 29A (C) of the West Bengal Municipal Act, 1994, states that an individual who wants to contest the polls in a particular municipality would have to be a voter of the area,' said S.R. Upadhyay, the state poll panel chief.

Although Rupa stays in Golf Green, which falls under ward 96, she is not a voter from Calcutta. Her voter card mentions an address in Sonarpur in South 24-Parganas, where her parents live.

Rupa told journalists she was not aware of the rules. 'I knew that the voter identity card was issued from Sonarpur but I was not told that I had to be a voter in Calcutta to contest the CMC polls,' she said.

A section of BJP leaders conceded that the actress, a rookie in politics, could not be blamed for the oversight and the party members managing the poll process should have been cautious and planned properly.

'This is an embarrassment for the party as she was our star candidate,' a senior BJP leader said.

Several leaders, particularly those unhappy with the list of candidates, criticised the leadership for the lack of planning and adequate homework before selecting nominees.

'Why didn't those who had approached her (Rupa) cross-check her address? They should have been more careful,' said a leader from south Calcutta.

He wondered how state BJP president Rahul Sinha overlooked the anomaly even though he himself was a resident of Regent Estate, which falls under ward 96.

Sinha has come under fire from a section of state leaders for the party's drubbing in the Bongaon and Krishnaganj bypolls.

'Instead of expanding the organisation, the focus has been on inducting disgruntled elements from other parties. Trinamul can run like this, not the BJP. There is no planning,' a BJP leader said.

Sinha, however, claimed that according to the municipal act of 1994, changes to the voters' rolls could be made till the last date of filing nominations, which is March 23. He said the poll panel refused to make the change in Rupa's case.

Upadhyay said no further changes could be made to the voters' list as the electoral rolls had been updated till March 9.

The BJP today had to also change its candidate for ward 5 following pressure from some leaders in north Calcutta. Party sources said Swapan Chakraborty, a former Trinamul secretary who recently switched to the BJP, replaced Pinky Roy. The party's initial choice was youth leader Ranjit Jha.