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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 error. Or a joke.

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

"Initially it was a few random messages. I thought they were confusing me for someone else," she explained. "Later they sent me the video where my face appeared on a big screen. I thought it was AI or some joke. But then lots of people started contacting at the same time and I realised it was real."

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

The Events That Transpired

What had taken place 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 denied the allegations.

Some time after the press conference, 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 ineligible voters "in order that necessary actions could be initiated". They did not respond to the particular allegations he made and did not comment on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of accusations of "vote theft" 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, multiple registrations and incorrect locations. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this reported tampering of the voters' list.

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

"Who is this woman? 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 multiple times across numerous voter entries under different 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 Photo

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

She clarified 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, "thought I was pretty and asked to take photos of me".

Now years later, all the focus in the past two days from "people from India, many of them reporters", has left her scared.

"I felt fear. I cannot determine if it is risky for me or if talking about it could affect someone there. I do not know who is correct or wrong because I do not know the groups involved," she expressed.

"I did not go to work in the morning because I could not even see messages from my clients. Many journalists 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 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 took 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 been in contact with this friend in years," he said. "I believed it was a scam. I blocked and flagged it."

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

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

Ferrero says some websites put his pictures next to Nery's photo without authorization. "People were making memes, 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 photoshoot. Ferrero said he posted the photos on his Facebook and also uploaded them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her consent.

"The photo blew up… achieved around 57 million views," 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 fear, because the photos were being misused. I got scared imagining this happening to other people I photographed. I felt violated. A lot of random people contacting me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The platform was accessible 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 close all accounts and understand later. Some people thought it was amusing, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Life Changing Circumstances

Neither Ferrero or 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 asked if all this helped uncover electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

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

Nery who has not once left the country states: "This is distant from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, much less in another country."