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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an allegation about reported election fraud, has explained that she initially thought it was all a error. 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 appeared on a big screen. I thought it was AI or some prank. But then many people started contacting at the same time and I realised it was real."

Nery, who resides in Belo Horizonte, the capital city of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state, and has not once been to India, says she looked on Google to comprehend what was going on.

The Events That Had Happened

What had occurred was the fallout of a media briefing by Indian political figure Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party BJP and the Election Commission (EC) of engaging in voter fraud in last year's election in Haryana state. The BJP has rejected the claims.

Some time after the media event, the election authority of Haryana shared a letter they claimed they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to endorse an oath with the names of ineligible voters "so that necessary actions could be started". They did not reply to the particular allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of claims of "vote theft" against the poll panel since early August.

In his most recent claims, he said his team had looked through 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 incorrect locations. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this alleged manipulation of the voters' list.

To prove his claims, he showed a series of slides on a big screen. One of them showed Gandhi standing in front of a big image of Nery, while another showed a compilation of 22 voters with various names and addresses but all with her images.

"Who is this lady? What age is she? She casts ballots 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi stated.

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

The Truth Behind the Photo

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

She clarified 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 take photos of me".

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

"I felt fear. I cannot tell if it is risky for me or if speaking about it could harm someone there. I do not know who is right or wrong because I do not know the parties involved," she expressed.

"I did not go to work in the morning because I could not even check messages from my clients. Many reporters were contacting me. They found the number of the place where I work.

"I had to remove the salon name from my profile because they were disturbing my workplace. My boss even talked to me. Some people consider it a meme, but it is impacting me in my career."

The Camera Artist's Perspective

Matheus Ferrero, who captured Nery's photo, is also swamped by the sudden attention. Until recently, he says India meant only Caminho das Índias - the 2009 Brazilian primetime show - 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 reached out 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 provide someone's name like that. And I hadn't been in contact with this friend in years," he explained. "I thought it was a scam. I ignored and reported it."

But since Gandhi's media appearance, "things have exploded".

"People were calling me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was going on. Later I searched online and realised what was happening, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites put his pictures next to Nery's photo without authorization. "Individuals were making memes, like transforming it into a game show joke. It's ridiculous."

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

"The photo blew up… achieved around 57 million views," he said.

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 shoot.

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

"When you see people accessing your Twitter, Facebook, private Instagram, you panic. The first response is to close all accounts and figure things out later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

Life Changing Events

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

When asked if all this helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

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

Nery who has not once left the country says: "This is far from my reality. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, let alone in a different country."