Who deserved the best actress award for 2002?

Rani and Bipasha acted better than Aishwarya IMO. But Aishwarya swept all the awards.

Rani Mukherjee deserved the award for Saathiya.

Look hard enough and maybe the deserving winner wasn’t even among these girls 

Manisha Koirala for Company 

I loved Devdas ( the movie,not the character ) but Rani deserved the award not Aishwarya.  Aishwarya was good enough in the film but Rani's acting was way better.  

Bipasha was nothing great in Raaz..she couldn't even dub for herself and her acting left a lot to be desired..she was also quite wooden and stiff like most models were back then..the movie was the biggest hit of 2002..it was the only BB of the year..in a otherwise terrible year with only 2 other hits in Devdas and Saathiya..however..that cannot make her acting in the movie the best by default..and one can never put her in same league as rani or aish..both of them were brilliant in their respective movies..

rani is one of my fav and she was so potent in saathiya but aish deserved the award..this comes from someone who doesn't rate aish too high in acting..but one cannot deny she was spectacular in both HDDCS and Devdas..

Yes, Raaz was the only designated BB while Devdas a Hit but Devdas grossed almost twice as much - it was by far the most popular film that year - and the only true breakout film.   (Not until KMG - more than year later did another film surpass it's gross.) 

• Aishwarya Rai in Devdas
  • Amisha Patel in Humraaz
  • Bipasha Basu in Raaz
  • Karisma Kapoor in Shakti
  • Rani Mukherjee in Saathiya

Tabu is Filhaal

Preity Zinta in Dil Hai Tumhara 

So many girls 

Aishwarya was picture perfect good in Devdas, of course she deseved all the recognition. 

Neither of those other performances match up. 

Madhuri Dixit for Devdas.

I know she won for Supporting Actress but all three of them were technically leads. Bollywood loves to slot the "other woman" into that category. But if we look at what the true meaning is, then only Kirron Kher, Sumita Jaykar and Ananjya Khare were part of the supporting cast.

Having said that, Aishwarya Rai winning was the most worthy winner, she was beyond splendid.

Rani was fantastic in Saathiya, but not quite #1. Preity in Dil Hai Tumhaara and Tabu in Filhaal too were noteworthy and should have been nominated.

Agree with Cougar - about Bipasha, that was an awful performance, I can't believe people are actually praising it. And she didn't even dub, that's like 50% of the performance. No comments on Amisha.

How is Bipasha on this list? She was horrendous. I dislike Saathiya so going with Aish