Raipur, April 27 (IANS) The Congress has struggled in vain to win the Bastar Lok Sabha seat in Chhattisgarh but will be victorious in the by-election next month as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) development claims had been exposed, Congress general secretary B.K. Hariprasad said Wednesday.

"Congress has a good chance to pull off victory for Bastar seat this time, because party leaders in the state are doing their best to expose development claims of the BJP regime," the Congress leader, who is also Chhattisgarh in-charge of the party, told reporters at Jagdalpur, headquarters of the Bastar region.

"By winning the Bastar seat, we want to set the tone for the Congress's return to power in the state in the assembly polls due in late 2013," Hariprasad said.

The Bastar Lok Sabha seat, in the sprawling Maoist stronghold of Bastar region, comprises eight assembly segments and the BJP presently holds seven of them. The Congress has fielded Kawasi Lakhma, the legislator of Konta, the lone seat that Congress won in the 2008 assembly polls under Bastar parliamentary constituency.

The tribal reserved Bastar seat goes to polls May 8 with eight candidates in the fray. The BJP candidate is Dinesh Kashyap, the son of BJP's sitting MP Baliram Kashyap who died last month here after prolonged illness.