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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been gaining attention in India this week after her image was displayed over the news in an claim about reported election fraud, has told that she at first thought it was all a mistake. Or a prank.

But then her social media 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 said. "Then they sent me the video where my face appeared on a big screen. I thought it was artificial intelligence 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 searched on Google to comprehend what was going on.

The Events That Had Happened

What had taken place was the consequence of a media briefing by Indian opposition leader 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 claims.

Hours after the media event, the election authority of Haryana shared a letter they claimed they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to sign an oath with the names of ineligible voters "so that necessary actions could be initiated". 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 claims of "electoral fraud" against the poll panel 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 problematic registrations - including duplicates, bulk voters and incorrect locations. He blamed 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 large image of Nery, while another showed a collection of 22 voters with different names and addresses but all with her photos.

"What person is this lady? What age is she? She casts ballots 22 times in Haryana," Gandhi said.

He explained 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 appeared on the voters' list under many names, including Seema, Sweety and Saraswati.

The Truth Behind the Image

The 29-year-old verified that it was certainly her in the photograph. "Yes. It is me. Considerably younger, but it is me. I am the individual 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 attention in the past two days from "individuals from India, many of them reporters", has left her scared.

"I became scared. I cannot determine if it is risky for me or if speaking about it could harm someone there. I do not know who is correct 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 journalists were calling me. They found 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 spoke to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is affecting me professionally."

The Camera Artist's Perspective

Matheus Ferrero, who captured Nery's photo, is also overwhelmed by the sudden attention. Until not long ago, 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 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 media appearance, "things have escalated dramatically".

"Individuals were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was awful. I deactivated my Instagram to try to comprehend what was going on. Later I searched online and understood 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 making memes, like turning it into a game show joke. It's absurd."

In 2017, Ferrero was just beginning his career 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… reached around 57 million views," he said.

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 frightened imagining this occurring to other people I shot. I felt violated. A lot of random people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something wrong?' But I didn't. The website was open and I posted like millions of others." He's also now made the original Facebook post with her photos private.

"When you see people accessing your Twitter, Facebook, private Instagram, you become alarmed. The first reaction is to close all accounts and understand later. Some people thought it was amusing, like a soap opera, but I felt invaded."

Life Changing Events

Not one of Ferrero or 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 asked if all this helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be positive?

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

Nery who has never left the country states: "This situation is far from my everyday life. I do not even follow elections in Brazil, let alone in another country."