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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been making headlines in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an claim about alleged election fraud, has told that she initially thought it was all a error. Or a prank.

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

"Initially 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 artificial intelligence or some prank. But then lots of people started contacting at the same time and I understood it was real."

Nery, who lives in Belo Horizonte, the main urban center of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state, and has never been to India, says she searched on Google to comprehend what was going on.

What Transpired

What had occurred was the consequence of a press conference by Indian political figure Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he accused 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 claims.

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 oath with the names of unqualified voters "in order that necessary actions could be initiated". They did not respond to the specific allegations he made and did not comment on Nery's case.

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

In his latest 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 alleged manipulation of the voters' list.

To demonstrate his claims, he showed a number 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 photos.

"Who is this woman? How old is she? She casts ballots 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 multiple times across numerous voter entries under different names. He referred to 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 confirmed that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Absolutely. It is me. Considerably younger, but it is me. I am the individual 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, "thought I was pretty and asked to take photos of me".

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

"I became scared. I cannot determine if it is risky for me or if talking about it could harm someone there. I do not know who is correct or incorrect 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 journalists were contacting me. They located 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 treat it like 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 not long ago, 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 thousands of miles 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 said. "I thought it was a fraud. I ignored and reported it."

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

"People were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I deactivated my Instagram to try to understand what was going on. Later I googled 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 permission. "People were making memes, like transforming 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 photoshoot. Ferrero said he posted the photos on his Facebook and also posted them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her consent.

"The photo became viral… reached around 57 million impressions," he said.

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 concern, because the photos were being improperly used. I got scared imagining this occurring to other people I photographed. I felt violated. A lot of random people contacting me. You think 'Did I do something wrong?' But I didn't. The platform was open and I uploaded like countless of others." He's also now made the original Facebook post with her photos private.

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

Life Changing Circumstances

Neither Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to comprehend how something that occurred at the other end of the world could turn their lives upside down.

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

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

Nery who has not once left the country says: "This is far from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, let alone in another country."