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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 claim about reported election fraud, has explained that she at first 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 scattered messages. I thought they were mistaking 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 joke. But then lots of people started contacting at the same time and I realised it was real."

Nery, who resides 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 happening.

What Transpired

What had taken place was the consequence of a press conference by Indian opposition leader 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 sign an oath with the names of unqualified voters "in order that necessary proceedings could be initiated". 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 accusations of "vote theft" against the poll panel since early August.

In his latest 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, multiple registrations 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 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 collection of 22 voters with different names and addresses but all with her photos.

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

He clarified that a solitary stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used multiple times across multiple 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 Image

The 29-year-old verified that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Absolutely. It is me. Considerably younger, but it is me. I am the person 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, "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 felt fear. I cannot tell if it is risky 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 parties 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 located 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 talked to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is impacting me professionally."

The Photographer's Viewpoint

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 television series - to him.

He's still trying to make sense of 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 explained.

"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 fraud. I ignored and reported it."

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

"People were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was awful. I deactivated my Instagram to try to understand what was going on. Later I googled and understood what was happening, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites placed his pictures next to Nery's photo without authorization. "Individuals were creating jokes, 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 shared the photos on his Facebook and also posted them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her permission.

"The photo became viral… 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 removed them out of fear, because the photos were being improperly used. I got frightened imagining this occurring to other people I photographed. I felt violated. A lot of unknown people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The platform was open and I posted 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 response is to close all accounts and understand later. Some people thought it was amusing, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

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 uncover electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

"Yes, I think that would be positive. But I don't really 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."