A Brazilian photographer and a woman he photographed in 2017 have found themselves unexpectedly entangled in an election fraud controversy in India — a situation that appears to trace back to a stock photo website.

As reported by Hindustan Times, Rahul Gandhi, an opposition politician from India’s Haryana state, made explosive allegations this week concerning election fraud in last year’s polls. Curiously, 22 of the supposedly fraudulent votes were linked to an image taken in 2017 of a Brazilian woman, Larissa Nery.

Matheus Ferrero, the photographer who captured Nery’s portrait in 2017, has been overwhelmed by the sudden attention from India. According to NDTV, Ferrero has even deleted his online presence due to the unexpected spotlight.

Ferrero originally took the photos of Nery for practice. With her permission, he uploaded the images to various free stock photo sites, including Unsplash. Following the controversy, Ferrero has removed the portrait from Unsplash.

During a live-streamed press conference, Rahul Gandhi displayed Nery’s portrait and questioned how it was possible for this woman to have cast 22 votes in the Indian elections. At that time, Nery’s identity was unknown.

There is no evidence that Nery herself, now a professional hairdresser in Brazil, traveled to India or illegally voted in the elections. Both Nery and Ferrero have expressed confusion about how they became involved in the allegations.

Ferrero told Aos Fatos, “They literally raided all my accounts. It was a lot of weird people talking about a lot of things.”

Gandhi claims that Nery’s portrait was used in voter records across 10 different electoral sections, suggesting what he calls a “centralized operation” of electoral fraud. He said, “Someone inserted this woman in the electoral list on a central level, not at the local level of the section,” while showing photos of Nery onscreen.

According to Gandhi, his party — which opposes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — has identified around 2.5 million votes that show signs of fraud.

In response to the claims, Nery said to NDTV, “They’re using an old picture of mine. It’s a really old photo. I was so young in it, like 18 or 20 years old. They’re using my photo for… I don’t know, some kind of election or voting thing in India. And they’re making me look Indian to scam people or hit each other with it. Look how crazy this is! What a mess I’m in!”

Amit Malviya, head of Modi’s information technology and social media unit, dismissed the accusations on X (formerly Twitter). He commented, “Now he claims that a Brazilian model voted 22 times in the Indian elections! From ‘vote theft’ to ‘vote carnival,’ Rahul Gandhi turned electoral mathematics into stand-up comedy.”

Importantly, there is no evidence that Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero or his 2017 portrait subject, Larissa Nery, had any involvement in the alleged election fraud in India. Nevertheless, they have become caught up in a chaotic and bizarre controversy far from home.

This is certainly not the kind of outcome one would expect when publishing portraits on a stock photo site like Unsplash.
https://petapixel.com/2025/11/07/how-a-portrait-of-a-brazilian-woman-fueled-an-indian-election-scandal/