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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her photograph was displayed over the news in an claim about alleged election fraud, has explained that she initially thought it was all a error. 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 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 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 looked on Google to comprehend 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 denied the allegations.

Hours after the media event, the Chief Electoral Officer of Haryana shared a letter they claimed they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to endorse an declaration with the names of ineligible voters "in order that necessary actions could be started". They did not respond to the specific allegations he made and did not provide statements on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of accusations of "vote theft" 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 duplicates, multiple registrations and invalid addresses. He attributed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this alleged tampering of the voters' list.

To prove his claims, he showed a series of slides on a big screen. One of them showed Gandhi positioned 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? How old is she? She casts ballots 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 repeatedly 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 Reality Behind the Photo

The 29-year-old verified that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Absolutely. It is me. Much younger, but it is me. I am the person 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 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 determine if it is risky 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 reporters were contacting 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 talked to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is impacting me professionally."

The Camera Artist's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who took Nery's photo, is also overwhelmed by the sudden attention. Until recently, he says India meant only Caminho das Índias - the 2009 Brazilian primetime show - 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 stated.

"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 said. "I thought it was a scam. I ignored and reported it."

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

"People were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was happening. Later I searched online and realised what was happening, but at first I had no idea."

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

In 2017, Ferrero was just beginning his career as a photographer when he invited 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… 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 session.

"I deleted them out of concern, because the photos were being misused. I got frightened imagining this occurring to other people I shot. I felt invaded. A lot of unknown people contacting me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The website was accessible and I posted 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 panic. The first response is to shut everything down and understand later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Life Changing Circumstances

Neither Ferrero or Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to understand 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?

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

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