A strange twist has emerged in Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “vote chori” (vote theft) allegations in Haryana. A Brazilian model named Larissa was shocked to find her old photo being shown during Gandhi’s press conference on alleged voter ID fraud.
During the conference, Gandhi displayed several examples claiming voter ID irregularities, including one image that appeared multiple times across different cards. The photo shown belonged to Larissa, a model and influencer from Brazil. Her picture was reportedly taken years ago but was wrongly linked to Indian voter cards.
Reacting in disbelief, Larissa posted a video online saying, “I can’t believe this! They are using an old photo of mine from when I was 18 or 20. They’re pretending I’m Indian to fool people. What madness is this?” Her statement, originally in Portuguese, went viral after fact-checker Mohammed Zubair shared it on social media. Many users mocked the confusion, while others questioned how her image became part of Indian political debates.
Later, CNN-News18 spoke to one of the Indian women whose voter ID carried Larissa’s photo. The woman, Pinky Juginder Kaushik, said it was a clerical mistake. “Yes, I went to vote myself. The name was correct, but the wrong photo was printed. No one forced me; I cast my vote normally,” she said.
Rahul Gandhi had accused the BJP of large-scale voter fraud in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections. He claimed that the same woman’s photo appeared 22 times across 10 polling booths, calling it proof of fake votes and postal ballot manipulation. Gandhi said, “Congress lost by 22,000 votes — but who is this lady? She voted 22 times!”
However, the Election Commission rejected these claims, saying Congress’s polling agents did not object during the voting process.
An investigation by The Indian Express later found that several of Gandhi’s examples were misleading. For instance, one address he cited with “501 voters” turned out to be a large family property where multiple generations legitimately live under one house number.
The bizarre mix-up has now gone viral online — turning a political allegation into a global talking point.
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