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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 alleged election fraud, has told that she at first thought it was all a error. Or a joke.

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

"At first it was a few scattered messages. I thought they were mistaking me for someone else," she explained. "Later 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 lots of people started contacting 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 comprehend what was going on.

What Had Happened

What had taken place was the fallout of a press conference by Indian political figure Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday where he accused 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 rejected the allegations.

Some time 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 endorse an oath with the names of ineligible voters "in order that necessary actions 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 "electoral fraud" 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 repeated entries, multiple registrations and incorrect locations. 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 positioned 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 images.

"Who is this woman? How old is she? She votes 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 repeatedly across multiple 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 indeed her in the photograph. "Absolutely. It is me. Considerably younger, but it is me. I am the individual in the images."

She clarified 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, "found me attractive and asked to photograph of me".

Now years later, all the focus 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 speaking about it could affect someone there. I do not know who is correct or incorrect because I do not know the groups involved," she said.

"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 located the number of the place where I work.

"I had to remove the salon name from my profile because they were disturbing my workplace. My boss even spoke to me. Some people consider it 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 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 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 provide 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 flagged it."

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

"People were contacting 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 clue."

Ferrero says some websites placed his pictures next to Nery's photo without permission. "Individuals were creating jokes, like transforming 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 photoshoot. Ferrero said he posted the photos on his Facebook and also uploaded them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her consent.

"The photo blew up… reached around 57 million impressions," 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 invaded. A lot of random 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 private.

"When you see people entering your Twitter, Facebook, personal Instagram, you become alarmed. The first response is to close all accounts and understand later. Some people thought it was funny, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

Life Changing Events

Neither Ferrero nor Nery have ever been to India and are still trying to understand how something that occurred at the far side 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 specifics," he said.

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