‘What craziness is this’: Brazilian reacts to Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ allegations

A Brazilian model whose photograph became central to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent “vote chori” allegation in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections has expressed shock after discovering that her image was being used in India’s political debate.

Speaking in Portuguese, as quoted by the Indian Express, Larissa, a Brazilian model and influencer, said, “Friends, I’m going to tell you a joke. They are using an old picture of me. I must have been about 18-20 years old… I don’t know if it’s an election, something about voting in India! What madness! What craziness is this? What world do we live in?"

Reports clarified that Larissa has never travelled outside Brazil, let alone visited India or voted in Haryana’s Assembly election last October.

Her reaction came soon after fact-checker Mohammed Zubair shared her video on social media, pointing out that the photograph shown by Rahul Gandhi during his press conference did not belong to any Indian voter.

Larissa said she had been flooded with messages and even received the viral image from a friend in another city.

According to online records, her photo is one among several portraits taken by Brazilian photographer Matheus Ferrero.

Meanwhile, News18 reached out to one of the women whose voter ID carried the Brazilian model’s photograph. The woman, identified as Pinky Juginder Kaushik, said the image mix-up was just a clerical mistake. “Yes, I went to cast my vote myself at the village school. The names are the same, but there was a mistake with the photo — they used someone else’s picture. Nevertheless, I did vote. No one pressured me to vote. I showed my slip and then cast my vote," she told News18.

Rahul Gandhi had alleged large-scale voter fraud during last year’s Haryana Assembly elections. He claimed that there were 22 voter entries using the same woman’s photograph, who, according to him, was a Brazilian model.

"Who is this lady? What is her name? Where does she come from? But she votes 22 times in Haryana, at 10 different booths, and has multiple names: Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, Rashmi, Vilma... But turns out she is actually a Brazilian model," Gandhi said.

Reports revealed that the image Gandhi referred to was first uploaded on March 2, 2017, to the free stock image platform Unsplash by professional photographer Matheus Ferrero. The photo, titled woman wearing blue denim jacket, has been viewed over 59 million times and downloaded more than 4 lakh times under the Unsplash license.

Gandhi alleged that 25 lakh votes were stolen in Haryana through 5.21 lakh duplicate voters, 93,174 invalid voters, and 19.26 lakh bulk voters. "Thousands of people associated with the BJP voted both in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh," he said.

The Election Commission responded to Gandhi’s accusations, questioning the accuracy of his claims. According to ANI, sources within the Commission said no appeals had been filed against the electoral rolls, and only 22 election petitions remain pending in the High Court for Haryana’s 90 assembly seats.

The Commission also asked why Congress's polling agents had not raised objections at polling booths if they believed duplicate voting had occurred.