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A Brazilian hairdresser named Larissa Nery, who has been making headlines in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an allegation about alleged election fraud, has told that she at first thought it was all a mistake. Or a prank.

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 mistaking me for someone else," she said. "Later they sent me the video where my face was shown on a big screen. I thought it was AI or some prank. But then many people started contacting at the same time and I realised 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 going on.

What Had Happened

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 denied the allegations.

Some time 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 declaration with the names of unqualified voters "so that necessary actions could be initiated". They did not respond to the particular allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a series of claims of "electoral fraud" 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 invalid addresses. He blamed 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 large 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? What age is she? She casts ballots 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi said.

He explained that a solitary stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used multiple times across multiple voter entries under various names. He described 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 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 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 photograph of me".

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

"I became scared. I cannot tell if it is dangerous for me or if speaking about it could harm someone there. I do not know who is right or incorrect because I do not know the parties involved," she said.

"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 had to remove 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 in my career."

The Camera Artist's Perspective

Matheus Ferrero, who took Nery's photo, is also overwhelmed 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 a great distance away.

Some people had reached out 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 seen this friend in years," he explained. "I thought it was a scam. I blocked and reported it."

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

"People were calling me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I deactivated my Instagram to try to understand 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 creating jokes, like transforming it into a game show joke. It's ridiculous."

In 2017, Ferrero was just beginning his career as a photographer when he asked Nery, who he knew, to come out for a photo session. 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 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 shoot.

"I deleted them out of fear, because the photos were being improperly used. I got frightened imagining this occurring to other people I shot. I felt invaded. A lot of unknown people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The website was accessible and I uploaded 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, 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 Events

Neither Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to comprehend how something that happened at the far side 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 details," he responded.

Nery who has not once left the country states: "This situation is distant from my everyday life. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, much less in a different country."