“Brazilian Model’s Photo Found on 22 Haryana Voter IDs, Sparks Allegations of Election Fraud”
Rahul Gandhi claims a stock photo of a Brazilian model was used across multiple voter IDs in Haryana, calling for an urgent probe into electoral fraud and the role of the Election Commission.
NEW DELHI- In a highly controversial revelation, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Election Commission of India (ECI) of mass electoral fraud in the 2024 Haryana Assembly elections. Gandhi’s claims center on an astonishing anomaly where a single stock photo of a Brazilian model appeared on at least 22 voter IDs in the Rai Assembly constituency, raising serious questions about identity fraud and the integrity of the voter roll system.
During a press conference, Gandhi unveiled what he described as irrefutable evidence—voter ID cards from the Rai constituency showing the same image of a woman in a blue denim jacket, which had been taken in Brazil over eight years ago.
The woman, who has been identified as a Brazilian model, appeared under various names including Seema, Sweety, Saraswati, Rashmi, and Vimla. These entries spanned 10 polling booths, and Gandhi claimed that this single identity could have allowed one person to cast multiple votes, potentially influencing the election outcome.
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“This isn’t a glitch; it’s a blueprint for stealing democracy,” Gandhi said during the press conference. He raised alarm about how a woman who had “never set foot in Haryana” could have been listed as a voter 22 times. Gandhi called for an immediate investigation into the Election Commission’s handling of voter rolls, suggesting that this was part of a deliberate effort to manipulate voter turnout and skew the results in favor of the BJP.
Further investigations by Gandhi’s team using reverse image forensics traced the photograph back to Matheus Ferrero, a Brazilian photographer, who had taken the photo in March 2017 during a shoot in Belo Horizonte. The image, titled “Woman Wearing Blue Denim Jacket,” had been uploaded to Unsplash, a stock photo platform, where it received over 59 million views and 421,000 downloads. The image was eventually removed from the platform after the issue came to light, but it had already spread to other sites like Pexels, fueling rumors and bogus social media personas.
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Gandhi’s findings raised an even more alarming concern when it was discovered that the same image appeared 223 times across two polling booths in Haryana. This, he argued, points to a systemic failure or deliberate sabotage of the voter database. Gandhi also accused the Election Commission of India of stonewalling requests for data and purging these duplicate entries only after the elections.
The Election Commission of India has since dismissed the claims, pointing to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) process which they say weeded out duplicates and other discrepancies, including entries for deceased or migrant voters. Officials also noted that no formal challenges to the voter rolls had been raised before the election. Gandhi’s team, however, continues to demand greater transparency in the verification process.
As the “Brazilian model” saga unfolds, it has ignited a fierce debate about the integrity of India’s digital voter systems. There have been growing calls for forensic audits of voter verification processes, with experts warning that this incident could signal serious vulnerabilities in India’s electoral ecosystem. Gandhi has vowed to take the matter to court, while critics caution that this episode risks further eroding faith in the electoral process and undermining democracy.
