WhatsApp has changed political messaging on economic matters

The popularity of social media has ensured that anyone with access to a smartphone and an internet connection can say what they want to say, and if it catches the fancy of people, the message can go viral. Take the case of an infographic showing that the size of Uttar Pradesh's (UP) economy had overtaken the size of Tamil Nadu's; it recently went viral on everything from LinkedIn to WhatsApp. P. Thiaga Rajan, minister of IT and digital services in the government of Tamil Nadu, wrote a piece in Frontline debunking the same. Indeed, Tamil Nadu's gross state domestic product…