Political parties gathered their flocks in Delhi and elsewhere in the country for the second day on Thursday as the clock ticked to Narendra Modi’s swearing-in as prime minister for the third time.

Among the hard negotiations in the NDA camp, television channels reported that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU had asked for the Agniveer scheme of temporary recruitments in the army to be reviewed.

NDTV quoted senior JDU leader KC Tyagi as saying that there was resentment over the scheme.

News agency ANI put out a video showing Tyagi saying that: “A section of voters has been upset over the Agniveer scheme. Our party wants those shortcomings which have been questioned by the public to be discussed in detail and removed.”

There was also speculation over whether the JDU would back another pet BJP scheme, of a universal civil code.

“On UCC, as the national president of the party, CM had written to the Law Commission chief. We are not against it but a solution should be found by talking to all stakeholders," Tyagi was quoted as saying in the ANI video.

Congress: Agnipariksha for Agniveer scheme

The Congress, upbeat from its stunning comeback in the Lok Sabha election, wasted no time in twisting the knife on the Agniveer scheme.

“This is 'agnipariksha' happening now because some are saying that it [the Agniveer scheme] should be reviewed. And I'll say that it should be reviewed because it has incurred them [the BJP] political losses, even in UP," Congress MP Kapil Sibal was quoted as saying by PTI.

The Modi 2.0 government rolled out the Agnipath scheme in June 2022. It entails four-year recruitment of youth. After the four years are over, only 25 per cent among the Agniveers of a batch are to be retained. The rest have to leave.

The Congress manifesto promised to scrap the Agniveer scheme and revert to the older recruitment scheme of 16 years of service.

Rahul Gandhi has publicly claimed that army chiefs did not endorse the new scheme. It was thrust upon the army to cut pension costs, Rahul has alleged.

Former army chief General VK Singh had hinted in a podcast last month that the scheme may be tweaked as the first batch of Agniveers graduates next year.

BJP huddle at Nadda home

The BJP leaders gathered at party president JP Nadda’s home, a day after it was reported that N Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP was driving a hard bargain for ministries.

Senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, held deliberations in what is seen as part of the party's exercise to reach out to allies over issues like their share of ministerial berths and pick the probables from within their party for the coalition government.

The NDA MPs are expected to meet on Friday to formally elect Modi as their leader, with the new government likely to be sworn in over the weekend.

Leaders from Uttar Pradesh listed reasons for their defeat at the BJP meeting in Nadda, television channels reported.

Naidu, Nitish hold own meetings

N Chandrababu Naidu held his own meeting with his elected MPs, as did Nitish with his JDU.

Nitish’s party, PTI reported quoting unnamed sources, is looking to get some key ministerial berths to reclaim some of the lost ground in Bihar where it has performed well after being seen to have fallen way behind the BJP and the RJD over the last few years in political strength.

With 12 MPs, the JD(U) is the second biggest BJP ally after the Telugu Desam Party's 16.

The new BJP-led government will depend critically on these two parties for survival.