The Way a South American Woman Became the Public Image of India Vote Scam Controversy

A Brazilian hairdresser named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her image was displayed over the news in an claim about alleged election fraud, has explained that she initially thought it was all a mistake. Or a joke.

But then her online profiles blew up and people started tagging her on Instagram.

"Initially it was a few scattered 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 artificial intelligence or some joke. But then lots of people started messaging 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 understand what was happening.

The Events That Transpired

What had occurred was the fallout of a press conference by Indian political figure 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 press conference, the election authority of Haryana shared a letter they said they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to sign an oath with the names of unqualified voters "so that necessary actions could be started". They did not respond to the particular allegations he made and did not comment on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of claims of "vote theft" against the election authority 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 irregular entries - including duplicates, multiple registrations 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 various names and addresses but all with her photos.

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

He explained that a solitary stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used repeatedly across numerous voter entries under various 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 Photo

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 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, "thought I was pretty and asked to take photos of me".

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

"I felt fear. I cannot tell if it is dangerous for me or if talking about it could harm someone there. I do not know who is correct 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 check messages from my clients. Many reporters 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 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 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 respond. I'm not going to give someone's name like that. And I hadn't seen this friend in years," he explained. "I believed it was a scam. I ignored and flagged it."

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

"People were calling me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was going on. Later I googled and understood what was occurring, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites placed his pictures next to Nery's photo without permission. "People were creating jokes, like transforming it into a game show joke. It's absurd."

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

"The photo became viral… reached around 57 million views," he stated.

He has now removed the link from his Unsplash account but he provided 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 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 website 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, private Instagram, you panic. The first reaction is to close all accounts and figure things out later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Life Changing Circumstances

Neither Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to comprehend how something that happened at the other end of the world could dramatically change their lives.

When questioned if all this helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be positive?

"Yes, I think that would be good. But I don't really know the specifics," he said.

Nery who has never left the country says: "This is far from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, let alone in a different country."