The Way a South American Woman Turned Into the Public Image of Indian Election Scam Controversy

A Brazilian hairdresser named Larissa Nery, who has been making headlines in India this week after her image was displayed over the news in an allegation about alleged election fraud, has told that she at first thought it was all a mistake. Or a prank.

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 confusing 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 AI or some prank. 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 looked on Google to comprehend what was happening.

What Transpired

What had taken place was the fallout of a media briefing by Indian political figure Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he accused 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 media event, 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 respond to the particular allegations he made and did not comment on Nery's case.

Gandhi has made a number of claims of "electoral fraud" against the poll panel since early August.

In his most recent 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 duplicates, multiple registrations and invalid addresses. He blamed his party's loss in the Haryana election on this reported manipulation 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 large image of Nery, while another showed a collection of 22 voters with different 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 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 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 certainly her in the photograph. "Yes. It is me. Much 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 focus in the past two days from "individuals from India, many of them reporters", has left her scared.

"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 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 located the number of the place where I work.

"I needed to delete the salon name from my profile because they were bothering my workplace. My boss even talked to me. Some people consider it a meme, but it is affecting me in my career."

The Photographer's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who took 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 television series - to him.

He's still trying to make sense of 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 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 explained. "I believed it was a fraud. I ignored and reported it."

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

"People were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was awful. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was happening. 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 authorization. "Individuals were making memes, like turning 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 photo session. Ferrero said he shared the photos on his Facebook and also posted them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her permission.

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

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 shoot.

"I removed them out of fear, because the photos were being improperly used. I got scared imagining this happening to other people I shot. I felt violated. A lot of unknown people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something wrong?' 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 entering your Twitter, Facebook, personal Instagram, you panic. The first response 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 understand how something that happened at the other end 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 responded.

Nery who has not once left the country states: "This is far from my reality. I do not even pay attention to elections in Brazil, let alone in another country."