How a Brazilian Woman Turned Into the Public Image of India Vote Scam Row

A Brazilian hairdresser named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her photograph was splashed over the news in an allegation about reported election fraud, has told that she initially thought it was all a mistake. Or a joke.

But then her online profiles blew up 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 was shown on a big screen. I thought it was artificial intelligence or some joke. But then many people started messaging at the same time and I realised it was real."

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

What Had Happened

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.

Hours after the press conference, the Chief Electoral Officer 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 "in order that necessary actions could be started". They did not reply to the particular allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a series of accusations of "electoral fraud" against the election authority 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 reported manipulation of the voters' list.

To prove 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 images.

"What person is this woman? What age 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 various 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 Reality Behind the Photo

The 29-year-old confirmed that it was indeed her in the photograph. "Yes. It is me. Much younger, but it is me. I am the person 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 scared.

"I felt fear. I cannot tell if it is risky 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 groups involved," she expressed.

"I did not go to work in the morning because I could not even see messages from my clients. Many reporters were contacting 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 in my career."

The Camera Artist's Perspective

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 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 explained.

"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 fraud. I blocked and reported it."

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

"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 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 making memes, like transforming it into a game show joke. It's absurd."

In 2017, Ferrero was just starting out 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 uploaded them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her permission.

"The photo blew up… achieved around 57 million impressions," he stated.

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 removed them out of fear, because the photos were being misused. I got scared imagining this occurring to other people I shot. I felt violated. A lot of random people contacting me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The platform 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 entering your Twitter, Facebook, private Instagram, you panic. The first response is to close all accounts and figure things out later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Transformative Events

Neither Ferrero or 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 questioned if all this contributed to reveal electoral fraud, would that be beneficial?

"Certainly, I think that would be positive. But I don't really know the details," he responded.

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, let alone in another country."