Kejriwal's full statehood demand can badly backfire .

Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.

Full statehood means Kejriwal will have to abandon his dreams of cutting tariffs for power and giving free water to all and sundry.

Arvind Kejriwal is perfectly within his rights to demand full statehood for Delhi. And there is no reason to deny it to him. Why should Delhi not get powers what other states automatically get?

Since it is not possible for the central government to come under a state government's administrative jurisdiction, it automatically means that Delhi has to be bifurcated .

And bifurcation mean not just geographical bifurcation, but bifurcation of all the services provided to the citizens of united Delhi: the police, the land development authority, the water-works, everything.

So the Delhi police will have to be split between the new full state of Delhi and a central autonomous mini-state .It will also mean splitting the Delhi Development Authority, and a new water sharing agreement involving the two residual entities, among other things.

What Kejriwal is demanding will merely make the bifurcation vertical - a separation of centre from state, geographically, resource-wise and emotionally. Kejriwal’s full-state Delhi will not be today’s Delhi.

First, as a full state of the Indian Union, Delhi will no longer be eligible to live off the central government's current subsidies.

Second, apart from Delhi’s value-added taxes, the primary revenue earners for a city-state are taxation of services, entry, exit and parking charges on vehicles, and property. Land rents, annual property taxes, and vehicle taxes will have to go up when Delhi achieves statehood. This is because in future, Delhi will have to pay for its own law and order costs, including policemen.  The Delhi Metro will have to charge more or be subsidised by the state.

Third, city-states need different governance structures compared to normal states with a mix of the rural and urban. No successful city-state can attract talent and skilled workers without running a very efficient, corporatised form of government. But Kejriwal has been talking just the opposite: empowering "gram" and "mohalla sabhas” that can realistically decide only things like where to store the garbage or stop a neighbourhood brothel. Mohalla sabhas cannot become the driving structures of an urbanised, knowledge-driven future state which may continue to receive a huge influx of underfed, illiterate, and unskilled or semi-skilled migrants. It is a recipe for chaos.

Fourth, statehood for Delhi means Kejriwal will be a net buyer of power and water from outside. This is already the case, but if power and water has to come from elsewhere (other states) and shared with the central administrative district run by the home ministry, it cannot be subsidised. Delhi can set up its own power plants, but these will have to be based on clean gas or renewable sources - both more expensive. Coal-based power will have to be bought from other states - at market rates.

Full statehood means Kejriwal will have to abandon his dreams of cutting tariffs for power and giving free water to all and sundry. A rich city-state can afford to pay, and it should.

Fifth, as a city-state which is hemmed in by three other states, Delhi will ultimately run out of land. The benefits of Delhi's sprawling growth will go to the contiguous states of Haryana, UP and Rajasthan - as it already does - and Delhi's residential growth will have to come vertically.

All of this can be done. It all depends on whether Kejriwal wants to run a city or a state.

City-states can work. They do. But it needs a different mindset to run – the mindset of a corporate CEO, not a populist rabble-rouser. City-states are capable of generating enormous value for the whole hinterland if they are run well and autonomously .So, if Arvind Kejriwal wants full statehood for Delhi, he has to rethink and reboot his party and his own approach to governance. It would also be a welcome shift.