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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 told that she at first thought it was all a mistake. Or a joke.

But then her online profiles 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. "Then they sent me the video where my face appeared on a big screen. I thought it was artificial intelligence or some prank. But then many people started messaging at the same time and I understood it was actually happening."

Nery, who resides 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 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 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 media event, the Chief Electoral Officer of Haryana shared a letter they said they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to endorse an declaration with the names of unqualified voters "so that necessary proceedings could be initiated". They did not reply to the specific 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 problematic registrations - including repeated entries, 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 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 different names and addresses but all with her photos.

"What person is this woman? How old is she? She votes 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi stated.

He clarified that a solitary 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 been listed on the voters' list under many names, including Seema, Sweety and Saraswati.

The Reality Behind the Image

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 individual in the images."

She explained 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 photograph 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 became scared. I cannot tell if it is dangerous for me or if talking about it could affect someone there. I do not know who is right or wrong because I do not know the groups involved," she expressed.

"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 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 affecting me in my career."

The Camera Artist's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who captured Nery's photo, is also swamped 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 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 give someone's name like that. And I hadn't been in contact with this friend in years," he said. "I thought it was a scam. I blocked and reported it."

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

"Individuals were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I disabled my Instagram to try to comprehend what was going on. Later I searched online and understood what was occurring, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites put his pictures next to Nery's photo without permission. "People 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 asked 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 blew up… achieved around 57 million views," he said.

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 deleted them out of fear, because the photos were being misused. I got scared imagining this happening to other people I photographed. I felt invaded. A lot of unknown people contacting me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The platform was open and I uploaded like millions of others." He's also now made the original Facebook post with her photos restricted.

"When you see people entering 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

Not one of Ferrero nor 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 questioned if all this helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

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

Nery who has not once left the country says: "This is far from my everyday life. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, much less in another country."