How a Brazilian Lady Became the Face of India Vote Scam Controversy

A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her image was splashed over the news in an allegation about reported election fraud, has explained that she initially thought it was all a error. Or a prank.

But then her social media blew up and people started tagging her on Instagram.

"Initially it was a few random messages. I thought they were mistaking me for someone else," she said. "Then they sent me the video where my face was shown on a big screen. I thought it was artificial intelligence or some prank. But then many people started contacting at the same time and I understood it was actually happening."

Nery, who resides in Belo Horizonte, the main urban center of southeastern Brazil's Minas Gerais state, and has not once been to India, says she looked on Google to understand what was happening.

The Events That 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 committing voter fraud in last year's election in Haryana state. The BJP has rejected the allegations.

Hours 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 declaration with the names of ineligible voters "so that necessary proceedings could be started". They did not respond to the particular allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of claims 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, bulk voters and incorrect locations. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this alleged tampering 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 various names and addresses but all with her images.

"Who is this lady? How old is she? She casts ballots 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi said.

He explained that a single stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used multiple times across numerous voter entries under various names. He referred to 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 verified that it was indeed her in the photograph. "Yes. 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 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 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 right or incorrect because I do not know the groups involved," she said.

"I did not go to work in the morning because I could not even check messages from my clients. Many reporters 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 consider it a meme, but it is impacting me in my career."

The Camera Artist's Perspective

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 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 respond. 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 believed it was a fraud. I ignored and flagged it."

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

"Individuals were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was awful. I disabled my Instagram to try to comprehend 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 permission. "Individuals were making memes, 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 posted the photos on his Facebook and also posted 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 removed them out of concern, because the photos were being improperly used. 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 posted like countless of others." He's also now made the original Facebook post with her photos restricted.

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

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 far side of the world could dramatically change their lives.

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

"Certainly, I think that would be good. But I don't truly know the details," he said.

Nery who has never left the country says: "This situation is far from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, much less in another country."