Brazilian Model Made Famous by Rahul Gandhi Shocked to Learn She is a Voter in Haryana

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Nov 6: The Brazilian model is shocked to learn that she is a voter in Haryana in India! The woman in the video presented before the media persons by the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to drive home his point about “vote chori” by the Election Commission of India allegedly in collusion with the BJP, has become the epicentre of a massive row.

The woman has been identified as Larissa Nery, actually a hairdresser in Brazil. The photo Mr Gandhi showed to have appeared 22 times in the voters’ list in one constituency in Haryana was actually taken seven or eight years back when the woman was about 19 or 20 years old.

A video of Larissa Nery, has now gone viral where she it was an old photo and that she had no idea when she consented to the photographer to upload the photo in some free download sites that it could be misused in another country far from Brazil.

An independent Google search, shows that Ferrero is a Brazilian photographer whose work, including portraits and fashion images, can be easily found on Unsplash. But hours later, a woman claiming to be the one whose picture was used, appeared online in a video reacting to the situation. She claimed that the picture being shown in Gandhi’s presser is of her when she was “about 20-years-old.”

A reverse image search identified the woman in the clip as Larissa Nery. She later reposted screenshots showing her video being circulated on ‘X’ to her Instagram story. Though the woman was speaking in Portuguese, an AI-generated translation of her remarks in the clip suggested that she appeared shocked as she reacted to reports of her name being misused in the alleged scam.

She jokingly said, “Folks, let me tell you the gossip. You’re laughing too much, aren’t you? I’m going to tell the gossip. Folks, they are using an old photo of mine. My photo is old, okay? Look, I was very young in the photo. [I must have been] about 20 years old, 18 years old.”

“They are using a photo of mine to run, I don’t know if it’s an election, something where you have to vote. And in India, they are portraying me as an Indian woman to scam others, folks.” Clearly stunned by the attention, Larissa added that reporters had started calling her after the controversy surfaced. “Oh my god, how crazy. What madness is this, what world are we living in,” she said, adding that a journalist had even contacted the salon where she works.

She also said the media was reaching out to her after her photograph went viral. “A reporter called me wanting to know about this whole thing, about going to the salon, my job… wanting to talk to me for an interview, I didn’t answer. The guy found me on Instagram, called me on Instagram. Larissa said she had been flooded with messages and even received the viral image from a friend in another city.

According to online searches, Larissa’s photo is one of many portraits clicked by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero. Screenshots of her video and reactions have since gone viral. In her latest Instagram status, she has posed, “Wow, that’s crazy! I’m Famous in India as the ‘mysterious Brazilian Model’!”

The photograph, titled ‘woman wearing blue denim jacket’, is available for free download on stock photography websites such as Unsplash and Pexels. While the woman is not named on these websites, the photographer is Matheus Ferrero, based in the Brazilian city, Belo Horizonte. The photograph has been downloaded over 4 lakh times from these two websites.

Brazilian news agency Aos Fatos reached out to Larissa, who clarified that she was not a model and had posed for the photograph to help out a friend. The photographer, Matheus Ferrero, sought her permission to share the image online, and she allowed it. Since then, her image has been used by thousands of publications as a representational image.

Aos Fatos also spoke to the photographer, Matheus Ferrero. He said he had to delete his Instagram account after millions of social media users started searching for his social media profiles after Gandhi’s big charge. Many of them mistook Matheus Ferrero for the model’s name. “They literally hacked all my accounts. There were a lot of strange people saying all sorts of things,” he said. According to Ferrero, people may not have understood that it was a photo downloaded from a free platform.

Larissa’s photograph went viral after Rahul Gandhi’s fresh round of allegations of vote fraud. He alleged that the Election Commission facilitated poll irregularities in the Haryana election last year. In yesterday’s press conference, Gandhi alleged that the photograph of a Brazilian woman appears 22 times in the voter list for Haryana’s Rai Assembly seat which the BJP’s Krishna Gahlawat won, beating the Congress’ Bhagwan Antil by 4,673 votes.

The Congress leader then offered Munesh’s ‘voter ID card’ as an example, and when someone pointed out the woman in the photograph did not appear to be from Haryana, he replied, “But she votes 22 times, and she votes in 10 different booths in Rai and she has got multiple names: Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, Rashmi, Vimla. This is a centralised operation. Somebody fed this lady into the electoral list at a centralised level, not at the booth level.”

However, the voter whose card was showed by Mr Gandhi in whose card the photo of the Brazilian model was found in the voter list, claimed that the original card she had actually had her own photo. The woman said. “The card I have has my photo… the one Rahul Gandhi showed does not. I cast my vote. I don’t know whose photo is (on the fake card),” said the woman, who identified herself as Munesh.

Showing more instances of voter IDs with the same pictures but different names, Gandhi said, “The Election Commission can remove duplicates in a second. Why don’t they do it? Reason: they are helping the BJP.” “I am questioning the Election Commission and the democratic process in India, and I am doing this with 100 per cent proof. We are sure that a plan was put in motion to convert Congress’s landslide victory into a loss,” he said.

Sources in the Election Commission questioned what polling agents of the Congress were doing on voting day. “They are supposed to object if the elector has already voted or if they doubt the identity of the elector,” a source said. The source also asked if Rahul Gandhi supports the Special Intensive Revision aimed at removing duplication from voter lists and striking off names of those who have died or moved from a particular constituency.

Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said Rahul Gandhi talks about “fake issues.” “Polling is happening in Bihar, yet he’s telling stories about Haryana. There’s nothing left in Bihar, so he’s shifting the narrative to Haryana.” The Leader of the Opposition, he said, should speak on serious issues. “They say they were winning in exit polls and opinion polls. But there’s always a difference between poll predictions and actual results. This keeps happening – it’s nothing new. We never made any allegations against the Election Commission,” he said.