NEW DELHI, Feb 4: New Delhi’s hurry to clinch a controversial nuclear deal with the United States despite its unpopularity in the Indian parliament was politically divisive and there would be no harm done if it were abandoned, two former foreign ministers said on Monday.

Rejecting Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s claim on Sunday that India would be “isolated” if the Indo-US nuclear agreement falls through, former ministers Kunwar Natwar Singh and Digvijay Singh described it as a “spectacularly divisive deal”.

“It is the UPA that is isolated on the nuclear deal. The UPA government was isolated in both houses of parliament,” Mr Natwar Singh, a suspended Congress leader, said in a joint statement with another former minister Digvijay Singh.

“To go ahead with this spectacularly divisive deal will be tantamount to disregarding parliament,” they said. Mr Mukherjee had said in Kolkata that “if the agreement is not through, we could have to face isolation and possibly isolation in sanction too.”

Monday’s joint statement said India was not isolated when it did not sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. “We were not isolated when we exploded a nuclear device in 1974.

“We were not isolated when we did not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, not too long ago. We were not isolated in 1998 when we exploded a number of nuclear bombs,” they contended.