🔗 Share this article

A Brazilian hairdresser named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an allegation about alleged 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.

"Initially it was a few random messages. I thought they were confusing me for someone else," she said. "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 messaging at the same time and I understood 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 searched on Google to comprehend what was happening.

What Had Happened

What had occurred was the consequence of a press conference by Indian opposition leader 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.

Hours after the press conference, the election authority of Haryana shared a letter they claimed they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to sign an oath with the names of unqualified voters "in order that necessary proceedings 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 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 problematic registrations - including duplicates, bulk voters and invalid addresses. 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 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.

"What person 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 multiple 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 Image

The 29-year-old verified that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Yes. 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 take photos of me".

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

"I felt fear. I cannot tell if it is dangerous for me or if speaking about it could affect 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 calling me. They found the number of the place where I work.

"I needed to delete the salon name from my profile because they were disturbing my workplace. My boss even spoke to me. Some people consider it a meme, but it is affecting me professionally."

The Photographer's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who captured Nery's photo, is also swamped by the unexpected attention. Until not long ago, 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 explained.

"I didn't reply. I'm not going to provide someone's name like that. And I hadn't seen this friend in years," he said. "I believed it was a scam. I blocked and reported it."

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

"Individuals 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 permission. "Individuals were making memes, like turning it into a game show joke. It's ridiculous."

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 posted the photos on his Facebook and also uploaded them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her permission.

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

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

"I removed them out of concern, because the photos were being misused. I got frightened imagining this happening to other people I shot. I felt violated. A lot of unknown 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 panic. The first response is to close all accounts and understand later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

Life Changing Circumstances

Not one of 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 uncover electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

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

Nery who has never left the country states: "This situation is distant from my reality. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, much less in another country."