Matheus Ferrero, the Brazilian photographer whose picture went viral on social media after Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi accused him of “vote chori” (vote stealing) regarding the Haryana election, has deleted his Instagram account following a surge of online attention and subsequent harassment.
Ferrero, from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, took the photo of the woman in 2017 and shared it online with her consent. The image, titled “Woman Wearing Blue Denim Jacket,” was uploaded to photo sites like Unsplash and Pexels, where it was made free to download. It has since been downloaded more than 400,000 times and widely used by various publications.
The photo became the center of a political firestorm after Gandhi shared it, alleging widespread electoral fraud and claiming that the same image had appeared on multiple voter cards in the Haryana polls last year.
Subsequently, Ferrero found himself trending on Indian social media. He informed Brazilian news portal Aos Fatos that he deleted his Instagram account after the controversy erupted.
“They literally hacked all my accounts. There were a lot of weird people saying all kinds of things,” Aos Fatos said.
He added that many people “misunderstood that this was a free stock photo.”
Who is the woman in Matheus Ferrer’s Painting?
According to Aos Fatos, the woman in the picture is a hairdresser who lives in Minas Gerais and took part in a photo shoot with the photographer in March 2017.
The hairdresser denied any connection with the Indian elections. She explained that she was not a professional model and was only posing for the photo to assist a friend. The photographer asked for permission to upload the image to the website, which was granted – and her image has since been used in thousands of publications, Aos Fatos reported.
Allegations of election fraud
The ‘vote chori’ allegation of electoral malpractice was leveled by Rahul Gandhi on November 5.
In a live press conference, the opposition leader accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Election Commission of manipulating the results of the October 2024 Haryana Assembly elections.
“It happened in 10 polling stations, which means it was a centralized operation. Someone put this woman in the electoral roll at the central level, not at the local polling station,” Gandhi said.
The charges allege the Brazilian woman’s face appeared 22 times under different names in voter records — an alleged sign of vote manipulation. The opposition leader further claimed that his party had identified 2.5 million votes that showed signs of irregularities, including duplicate voters.
