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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her image was splashed over the news in an allegation about reported election fraud, has explained that she initially thought it was all a mistake. Or a joke.

But then her social media exploded with activity and people started mentioning her on Instagram.

"At first it was a few scattered messages. I thought they were confusing me for someone else," she explained. "Then they sent me the video where my face was shown on a big screen. I thought it was AI or some joke. But then many people started contacting at the same time and I understood it was actually happening."

Nery, who lives in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state, and has not once been to India, says she searched on Google to understand what was happening.

What Transpired

What had occurred was the fallout of a press conference by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party BJP and the Election Commission (EC) of committing voter fraud in last year's election in Haryana state. The BJP has denied the claims.

Some time after the media event, the Chief Electoral Officer of Haryana shared a letter they claimed they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to sign an declaration with the names of unqualified voters "in order that necessary proceedings could be initiated". They did not reply to the particular allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a series of accusations of "electoral fraud" against the poll panel since early August.

In his most recent claims, he said his team had examined the Election Commission's voter list data and found that of the approximately 20 million voters, 2.5 million were irregular entries - including repeated entries, bulk voters and invalid addresses. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this alleged tampering of the voters' list.

To prove his claims, he showed a number of slides on a big screen. One of them showed Gandhi standing in front of a large image of Nery, while another showed a collection of 22 voters with different names and addresses but all with her photos.

"Who is this woman? How old is she? She casts ballots 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi said.

He explained that a single stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used repeatedly across numerous voter entries under various names. He referred to Nery as a model who had appeared on the voters' list under many names, including Seema, Sweety and Saraswati.

The Truth Behind the Photo

The 29-year-old confirmed that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Absolutely. It is me. Much younger, but it is me. I am the person in the images."

She explained that she was a stylist and not a model and that the photo was taken in March 2017 when she was 21, just outside her home. The photographer, she said, "found me attractive and asked to photograph of me".

Now years later, all the attention in the past two days from "individuals from India, many of them reporters", has left her frightened.

"I became scared. I cannot tell if it is risky for me or if talking about it could affect someone there. I do not know who is correct or incorrect because I do not know the groups involved," she expressed.

"I couldn't go to work in the morning because I could not even see messages from my clients. Many reporters were calling me. They found the number of the place where I work.

"I had to remove the salon name from my profile because they were bothering my workplace. My boss even talked to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is affecting me professionally."

The Camera Artist's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who took Nery's photo, is also swamped by the sudden attention. Until recently, he says India meant only Caminho das Índias - the 2009 Brazilian television series - to him.

He's still trying to understand the events of the last few days in a country a great distance away.

Some people had contacted to him from India a week back, asking him who the woman in the photo was, he stated.

"I didn't reply. I'm not going to give someone's name like that. And I hadn't been in contact with this friend in years," he explained. "I thought it was a fraud. I ignored and flagged it."

But since Gandhi's press conference, "the situation have escalated dramatically".

"Individuals were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was awful. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was going on. Later I googled and realised what was occurring, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites placed his pictures next to Nery's photo without authorization. "Individuals were creating jokes, like transforming it into a game show joke. It's absurd."

In 2017, Ferrero was just beginning his career as a photographer when he invited Nery, who he knew, to come out for a photo session. Ferrero said he shared the photos on his Facebook and also posted them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her consent.

"The photo became viral… achieved around 57 million impressions," he stated.

He has now removed the link from his Unsplash account but he provided screenshots taken earlier that showed other photos of Nery from the same session.

"I removed them out of concern, because the photos were being improperly used. I got scared imagining this happening to other people I shot. I felt invaded. A lot of random people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something wrong?' But I didn't. The website was accessible and I posted like millions of others." He's also now made the original Facebook post with her photos restricted.

"When you see people entering your Twitter, Facebook, private Instagram, you become alarmed. The first response is to shut everything down and understand later. Some people thought it was amusing, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

Transformative Events

Neither Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to comprehend how something that happened at the far side of the world could dramatically change their lives.

When questioned if all this helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be positive?

"Yes, I think that would be good. But I don't truly know the specifics," he responded.

Nery who has not once left the country says: "This situation is far from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, much less in a different country."