The only hope now is the chief minister who had promised to make Mumbai business friendly.A Bharatiya Janata Party legislator on Tuesday wrote to Mumbai Police Commissioner Rakesh Maria, urging him to withdraw his decision to allow restaurants and pubs to remain open all night.While several BJP MLAs and MPs have been opposing the move for various reasons - primary of them being that the idea of all-night restaurants was first proposed by Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray - this is the most decisive step taken yet to stall the proposal.The letter written by Colaba MLA Raj Purohit cites Mumbai’s mixed commercial-residential neighbourhoods as one of the main reasons why all-night restaurants and pubs could prove to be problematic.Purohit is not alone. Two more BJP MLAs -- Ashish Shelar, who is the city BJP chief, and Ameet Satam, the Andheri (West) MLA – have been mobilizing residents against the move from the day this newspaper broke the news of the commissioner’s nod to all-night restaurants. The three cover the most fertile ground for a vibrant nightlife in Mumbai -- Colaba, Bandra, and Andheri.Though the Sena and the BJP are allies, their relations are far from cordial. From Sena chief and Aditya’s father UddhavThackeray taking potshots at PM Narendra Modi’s waning popularity to Sena complaining that its ministers are not allocated any work, the two are constantly at each other’s throat. And with the BMC set to go to elections in 2017, BJP is unwilling to let Aditya Thackeray walk away with the credit for reviving Mumbai’s nightlife.However, public posturing is all about how residents are against the idea of all-night restaurants and pubs. Purohit said all the questions in his letter have come from Colaba residents. “We want to know if traffic signals will be on the whole night and how will the short-staffed traffic police man them? Petty crimes are on the rise, are the police going to have a special team to handle nightlife? All this nightlife will cause serious breach of peace, how are the cops going to tackle that? Maria’s decision has been taken in haste and is not in tune with the ground realties,” Purohit said.Purohit, who is also the BJP’s chief whip in the assembly, said he would soon take up the matter with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and demand that the nightlife plan be stayed. Putting the nightlife proposal - which has caused great excitement in the city - on the back-burner is not going to be very difficult for the BJP. The party controls all departments whose nod is required, including Home, Urban Development, Labour, and Law and Judiciary. While Fadnavis heads Urban Development, Home and Law Departments; the Labour Department is with the BJP’s Prakash Mehta.Sources said that it is unlikely that the proposal would even be brought up in the Budget Session of the state assembly beginning on March 9.While Purohit and Satam are openly opposing the nightlife proposal, Shelar has been more circumspect. He has attacked the idea as elitist and demanded that roadside food vendors too be given liecenses to operate all night.Satam, however, believes that there are more important issues that the government needs to attend to than waste its time reviving Mumbai’s nightlife. “There are grave issues like infrastructure, roads, healthcare and affordable housing that need to be addressed. These serious issues must be taken up on priority. We are not opposed to shops being open at night but such things must not happen in residential areas. Peace and tranquility of local residents must not be destroyed,” Satam said.The ball is now in Fadnavis’ court. On the one side his government promise to make Mumbai business friendly, to which a vibrant nightlife is integral, and on the other is the opposition to the idea within his own ranks. The CM, according to Aditya, seemed inclined to accept the proposal when he had met him. But that meeting took place a long time ago.A Sena spokesperson criticized the BJP for its stand, saying these MLAs haven’t even read the proposal.“The BJP talks of economy, but is killing the single largest proposal for reviving Mumbai’s economy,” said the leader. “After Aditya gave a detailed plan to the CM, BJP MLAs who haven't read it are forcing the CM to withdraw his nod only for their own egos. Sadly they don't love Mumbai; they want to kill Mumbai. They've never known Mumbai, or what its people want. The shocking part is that the CM is scared of taking these bold positive decisions. Is he really in charge?”