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

But then her online profiles exploded with activity and people started mentioning her on Instagram.

"Initially it was a few random 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 artificial intelligence 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 looked on Google to comprehend what was happening.

The Events That Transpired

What had occurred was the fallout of a media briefing 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 rejected the allegations.

Some time after the press conference, the election authority of Haryana shared a letter they said they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to endorse an declaration with the names of ineligible voters "in order that necessary proceedings could be started". They did not reply to the specific allegations he made and did not comment on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number 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 incorrect locations. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this reported tampering of the voters' list.

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

"What person is this lady? How old is she? She votes 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi said.

He clarified 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 described Nery as a model who had appeared on the voters' list under many names, including Seema, Sweety and Saraswati.

The Truth Behind the Image

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

She explained that she was a hairdresser 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 focus in the past two days from "people from India, many of them journalists", has left her scared.

"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 correct or wrong because I do not know the groups involved," she said.

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

"I needed to delete the salon name from my profile because they were bothering my workplace. My boss even spoke to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is impacting me in my career."

The Camera Artist's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who captured Nery's photo, is also swamped by the unexpected attention. Until recently, he says India meant only Caminho das Índias - the 2009 Brazilian primetime show - to him.

He's still trying to make sense of 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 respond. I'm not going to provide someone's name like that. And I hadn't seen this friend in years," he explained. "I thought it was a scam. I blocked and reported it."

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

"People were calling me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I disabled my Instagram to try to understand what was happening. Later I googled and understood what was happening, but at first I had no clue."

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

In 2017, Ferrero was just starting out as a photographer when he invited Nery, who he knew, to come out for a photo session. Ferrero said he posted 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 stated.

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

"I deleted them out of fear, because the photos were being misused. I got scared 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 website 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 shut everything down and understand later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Life Changing Events

Not one of Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to comprehend how something that occurred at the far side of the world could turn their lives upside down.

When questioned if all this contributed to reveal electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

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

Nery who has not once left the country says: "This is distant from my everyday life. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, let alone in another country."