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A South American stylist named Larissa Nery, who has been making headlines in India this week after her image was splashed over the news in an claim about reported election fraud, has told that she at first thought it was all a error. Or a joke.

But then her social media blew up and people started tagging her on Instagram.

"At first it was a few random messages. I thought they were confusing me for someone else," she said. "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 many people started messaging at the same time and I understood it was real."

Nery, who lives 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 understand what was going on.

The Events That Transpired

What had taken place was the fallout 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 denied the claims.

Hours after the press conference, the Chief Electoral Officer of Haryana shared a letter they said they had sent to Gandhi in August asking him to sign an declaration with the names of unqualified voters "so that necessary actions could be initiated". They did not reply to the specific allegations he made and did not comment 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 examined the Election Commission's voter list data and found that of the approximately 20 million voters, 2.5 million were irregular entries - 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 standing in front of a big 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 stated.

He explained that a single stock photo of a woman, taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero, had been used multiple times across multiple 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 Image

The 29-year-old confirmed that it was indeed 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, "found me attractive 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 frightened.

"I felt fear. I cannot determine if it is dangerous for me or if speaking 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 did not go to work in the morning because I could not even see messages from my clients. Many journalists were calling me. They found 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 talked to me. Some people treat it like a meme, but it is impacting me in my career."

The Camera Artist's Viewpoint

Matheus Ferrero, who took Nery's photo, is also swamped by the unexpected attention. Until recently, he says India meant only Caminho das Índias - the 2009 Brazilian primetime show - 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 contacted 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 been in contact with this friend in years," he explained. "I believed it was a scam. I ignored and reported it."

But since Gandhi's media appearance, "the situation have exploded".

"Individuals were contacting me on Instagram and Facebook. It was terrible. I disabled my Instagram to try to understand what was going on. Later I googled and understood what was happening, but at first I had no idea."

Ferrero says some websites placed his pictures next to Nery's photo without authorization. "Individuals were making memes, like turning it into a game show joke. It's ridiculous."

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 posted the photos on his Facebook and also posted them on Unsplash - a photo website - with her consent.

"The photo blew up… achieved 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 session.

"I deleted them out of concern, because the photos were being misused. I got frightened imagining this occurring to other people I photographed. I felt invaded. A lot of random people coming at me. You think 'Did I do something incorrect?' But I didn't. The website was accessible and I uploaded 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 become alarmed. The first response is to close all accounts and figure things out later. Some people thought it was amusing, like a soap opera, but I felt violated."

Transformative Circumstances

Not one of Ferrero nor 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 helped reveal electoral fraud, would that be positive?

"Yes, I think that would be good. But I don't really know the specifics," 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."