From Hema Malini to Pawan Kalyan and from Shatrughan Sinha to Kangana Ranaut, there have been many actors who have been involved in politics. Kollywood superstars Kamal Haasan and Vijay have even launched their own political parties in the last few years. But, one major Bollywood superstar had founded his political party 45 years ago but dissolved the same even before contesting any elections. He is none other than Dharamdev Pishorimal Anand aka Dev Anand.

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In 1975, when the then Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi announced Emergency, the actors were forced to heap praises on the Govenment. There were several superstars, such as Dev Anand, Manoj Kumar, Kishore Kumar, and others, who refused to follow the orders and had to face the consequences. Their songs and films were banned on All India Radio and Doordarshan and their film shoots were constantly disturbed.

After the Emergency was lifted in 1977 and elections were announced, the Hindi film industry showed its support to Morarji Desai's Janata Party, which came to power but fell through within two years. Just after a month in September 1979, Dev Anand launched his own political party called National Party of India in Bombay (now Mumbai).

A few months later, Dev Anand disbanded his own political party as they could not find the right candidates to field for the 1980 general elections. "I tried my best to run a political party christened National Party of India after Indira Gandhi's emergency, but I am glad I gave it up because we could not find right candidates to contest the polls then", the superstar had said at the Jaipur Literature Fest in 2008.

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